As regards the ground at Inkerman on which the great conflict took place, it did not in itself offer any very inviting facilities to an enemy's attack. It formed the right-hand corner, as it were, of our position on the elevated plateau south of the city; and the ascent to it from Sebastopol and the Chernaya was precipitous, its area being restricted by the Careening Bay ravine on one side, and by steep slopes on the other—so that the enemy's columns as they arrived were rather huddled together, and got in each other's way.
Todleben wrote: 'Although the nature of the ground rendered this position a strong one in itself, it was to be considered that the number of English troops which occupied it was very weak.'[10]
The general plan was as follows:[11]
SKETCH TO ILLUSTRATE THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN
Two corps of the Russian army under General Dannenberg, computed at 40,000 infantry and 135 guns, were detailed for the attack. One under Dannenberg and Pauloff was to cross the marsh at the mouth of the Chernaya, climb the heights, and force the English right; whilst the other, under Soimonoff, was to leave Sebastopol, near the Malakoff, and advance up the left side of the Careening Bay ravine. These arrangements would appear to be simple enough, but as it turned out they were in a great measure frustrated by a singular mistake. It appears that General Soimonoff, looking from Sebastopol, imagined that he was to advance up the left side of the ravine as he saw it from that point of view, whereas the intention was precisely the reverse. The intention of General Dannenberg seems clear from the following short extract from his instructions to Soimonoff, issued the day before. He says: 'Votre flanc gauche sera parfaitement couvert par le ravin du Carénage, et la coopération des troupes qui traversent la Chernaya.' Again he says: 'Un ravin profond et très long, connu sous le nom de ravin du Carénage, nous sépare, le général Soimonoff et moi, au commencement de l'attaque.'
As it was, however, before daybreak on the 5th Soimonoff led his corps across the ravine, and marched up on the other side, so that when Pauloff arrived immediately after he found the heights already occupied and the battle begun. This initial blunder (although we were of course ignorant of it at the time) hampered the Russians throughout the day; and the death of Soimonoff early in the action probably rather added to their confusion. A Russian account quite confirms this view. It says: 'The disadvantage of this false direction was that from the confined nature of the ground Soimonoff's troops were very much in the way of Pauloff's columns, and neither the one nor the other could find space to deploy.' ... 'While the Russians were moving about in columns, the English were drawn up in a line two deep, and their long-ranging guns enabled them to inflict mortal wounds on the Russians at a time when the latter were unable to reach them at all with their firearms.'
As regards the arrangements of the English previous to the battle, 500 men of the Second Division and three guns were detailed daily to watch the ground at Inkerman, and one or two slight earthworks were thrown up; a picket of the Light Division being also posted in the Careening Bay ravine, which, however, was captured on the morning of the 5th.