Inkerman was not the name of the ground on which the battle was fought, and which probably had no name, but was taken from the heights beyond the Tchernaya. Opposite the cliff which supports the north-eastern corner of the Upland rises another, of yellow stone, honey-combed with caverns, and crowned with a broken line of grey walls, battlemented in part, and studded with round towers. These are the " Ruins of Inkerman," and around them masses of grey stone protrude abruptly through the soil, of such quaint, sharp-cut forms that in the distance they might be taken for the remains of some very ancient city. From these the hill slopes upward to a plateau, mostly invisible from our position, where Menschikoffs field army was assembled. It is from this locality, the features of which are so striking to the eye when viewed from the British position, that the corner of the Upland, bounded on the west by the Careenage ravine, and on the north by the harbour, has received the name of Mount Inkerman.
The Second Division camp stood on a slope, rising beyond it to a crest, which, nearly level for most of its width, bent down on the right to the top of the cliffs above the Tchernaya, on the left to the Careenage
1 36 British Position.
ravine, the extent from the one boundary to the other being about 1400 yards. On ascending to this crest, and looking towards the head of the harbour, the ground beyond was seen bending downward into a hollow, and again rising to a hill opposite, which, with its sloping shoulders, limited the view in that direction to about 1 200 yards. This opposite summit was Shell Hill, the post of the Russian artillery in the engagement, and the space between that and our crest comprised most of the field of battle, the whole of which was thickly clad with low coppice, strewn throughout with fragments of crag and boulders. A very few natural features marked the field. About 500 yards from its right boundary, our crest, instead of sloping down to the front as elsewhere, shot forward for about 500 yards, in what Mr Kinglake calls the Fore Ridge, and from the spine of this eminence the ground fell rapidly, still covered thickly with stones and coppice, to the edge of the cliffs, where, at a point abreast of the northern end of this Fore Ridge stood the famous Sandbag Battery on a point (called by Kinglake the Kitspur), isolated to some extent by a small ravine plunging north-east to the valley. Two other natural features complete the general character of the field, namely, two glens, which half way between our crest and Shell Hill, at the bottom of the dip, shot out right and left, narrowing the plateau between them to half its width, till it expanded again as they receded from it at the bases of Shell Hill.
Menschikoff, whose plans of battle always showed how vague were his ideas about tactics, gave general orders to
The Russian Plan of Battle. 137
this effect : General Soimonoff was to assemble within the works his force of 19,000 infantry and thirty-eight guns, and issue from them, near the mouth of the Careenage ravine ; at the same time, General Pauloff, with his 16,000 infantry and ninety-six guns, was to descend from the heights, cross the causeway and bridge of the Tchernaya, and "push on vigorously to meet and join the corps of Lieutenant-General Soimonoff." In another paragraph of the orders the object of the operation is stated to be to attack the English "in their position, in order that we may seize and occupy the heights on which they are established." The forces in the valley, lately commanded by Liprandi, now by Gortschakoff, were " to support the general attack by drawing the enemy's forces towards them, and to endeavour to seize one of the heights of the plateau." The garrison of Sebastopol was to cover with its artillery fire the right flank of the attacking force, and in case of confusion showing itself in the enemy's batteries, was to storm them. These being the general directions, the execution of them was left to the different commanders, namely, for the main attack to Soimonoff and Pauloff, for the auxiliary operations to Gortschakoff and the commandant of Sebastopol.