Enemy of Men and Elves

Soon after Morgoth fled back to Middle-earth with the Silmarils, he launched a devastating assault against the Elves of Beleriand. Orcs roamed widely over the land, and they were only fully defeated after the Noldor also returned across the Sea. The Noldor routed the Orcs in the Battle-under-Stars, but these events began a conflict between Morgoth and the Elves that would continue through the remaining centuries of the First Age.

For much of this time, the Elves penned Morgoth within his northern stronghold through the long Siege of Angband. During this time Men entered Beleriand, and many of them joined the Eldar in their vigil against the Dark Lord. After nearly four hundred years of the Siege, Morgoth unleashed the Dagor Bragollach, the Battle of Sudden Flame in which the tide of the war was turned. That battle, and the disastrous Nirnaeth Arnoediad that followed, left Men and Elves fighting back Orcs and Easterlings that swarmed across Beleriand almost unchecked.

Túrin was the heir of the House of Hador, but the homeland of his house, Dor-lómin, had been overrun and occupied by Morgoth's Easterling allies. Túrin was raised in exile in Doriath, and later wandered in the wild as an outlaw. It was at this time that he gave Morgoth the title of 'Enemy of Men and Elves' in a war that - at that time - Men and Elves seemed destined to lose. (The Enemy would eventually be defeated through the intervention of the Valar and the War of Wrath, but that would not be until decades after Túrin's time.)