Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-97.81.240.58-20130603234626/@comment-11444045-20140401171939

To avoid constantly quoting, the AD were just as tired and close to being defeated against the war in imperial city as the imperials were, and the simple fact they had back up coming in from hammerfell would have proved this. However according to a in game book, don't remember the name suggested a leak of information from the inside(whether that's an imperial traitor helping AD idk) but it did suggest something happened and communications probably was affected some how or them altering comunications from the imperials to benefit them in the war(ala cloak dagger tactics) allowed them to get inside Titus head and had him sign a treaty that DIDN'T benefit them. On the short term you could say "yea it did allow them to not be wiped out" but realistically they were close to being beaten themselves. It's prideless as warriors to just submit defeat in the jaws of victory. I'm not really going to spend hours into researching this but many people have stated previously that the treaty signing was entirely uncessary and he had victory close within his grasps. Simple fact is all the people who died fighting against the thalmor invasion died for nothing. Their death didn't help beat the thalmor but rather they saw how cowardly the leader was by signing a treaty. If I fell in battle fighting for a cause that is against the AD/Thalmor goal but then saw my leader give in in fear and sign a treaty that benefits only the thalmor(removing talosworship the hell) i'd be so pissed. The fact isn't that he signed the treaty but rather did so at the last stages of the war where he could have won. It's like you fighting a dual and you submitting after the other dude is cornered and easily defeatable. That's the problem, had he sign the treaty from the get go so many lives could have been spared but nope.

Hammerfell proved the AD were able to be stopped and they did it like true warriors without giving in. Now in skyrim Legionaires like Tulius claimed the treaty was to buy them some time to gain strength ironically doing the same thing for the thalmor thus why they wanted the whole stormcloak/imperial war to continue, they wanted both to eat away at their strength and money to make them weaker than they were. This is why they're strong not because of battle skill or magic skill but because they're manipulation and cloak and dagger tactics. A huge scale world war against them would easily kill them off and remove the threat of them.