Shippey compares Sauron's offer to the Vichy treaty imposed on France after its surrender in 1940: sovereignty over the disputed territory of Ithilien [East of the Anduin], the Alsace-Lorraine of Middle-earth, is to be transferred, and in the lands to the West a demilitarized zone, with what one can only call Vichy status, which will pay war-reparations, and be governed [from Isengard] by what one can again only call a Quisling.