Battle of Inkerman

Background

The allied armies of Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire landed on the west coast of the Crimea on 14 September 1854 to take the Russian naval base at Sevastopol. After beating the Russians on the Alma they could not agree on how to attack the city, and settled down to besiege it from the south.

The siege lines were long and thinly held. The Russian attack at Balaclava on 25 October showed how stretched the allies were, and the next day a Russian probe, later called Little Inkerman, struck the British right on Mount Inkerman before De Lacy Evans's Second Division drove it off in about three hours.

Mount Inkerman was the weak corner. A plateau roughly a mile and a half by three-quarters, it was cut by steep ravines: among them the Careenage Ravine on one side and St Clement's Ravine falling away towards the Tchernaya on the other. Shell Hill, about 200 metres high, faced Home Ridge, the British position, at a little over a kilometre. The Second Division held Home Ridge; the Guards Brigade lay about a mile to the south, and Bosquet's French Corps of Observation a mile beyond that. The other British divisions were to the west, separated by ravines that slowed any reinforcement.

Menshikov planned to roll up this flank. Two columns would converge on the plateau under Dannenberg, the IV Corps commander, while Gorchakov made a diversion across the Tchernaya towards the Fedioukine Hills to pin Bosquet, and a demonstration against the allied left kept the rest of the French in place. The attack went in on the morning of 5 November.

The armies

The Russians committed two assault columns. Soimonov's 19,000 men and 38 guns came out of Sevastopol; Pavlov's 16,000 and 96 guns marched from the Mackenzie Heights to cross the Tchernaya. Gorchakov's 20,000–22,000 and 88 guns were to divert and threaten. Command was divided and confused: Dannenberg was to take over only once the columns met, Soimonov was boxed by Menshikov's directive into the narrow ground beside the Careenage Ravine, and the Russian sources say maps of the ground were issued only after the battle.

The allies began the day with very little on the plateau: some 2,700–3,000 men and 12 guns of the Second Division under Pennefather, standing in for the injured De Lacy Evans. The Guards, the Light and Fourth Divisions and then Bosquet's French fed in during the morning, giving the allies about 15,700–16,000 men and 56 guns in all.

The decisive technical difference was the infantry weapon. The British and French carried the Minié rifled musket, far more accurate and longer-ranged than the Russian smoothbores and, by one account, more reliable in the wet. Russian columns took heavy losses from rifle fire before they could close. Two British 18-pounder siege guns, manhandled onto Home Ridge on Raglan's order, would outrange the Russian field batteries on Shell Hill.

The battle

Approach (about 5 a.m. to 7 a.m.). Heavy rain on 4 November gave way to dense mist before dawn, hiding the Russian advance. Pavlov left the Mackenzie Heights at about 5 a.m. but was held up for some two hours while the bridge over the Tchernaya was repaired. Soimonov moved off from Sevastopol earlier than ordered and, rather than clearing Victoria Ridge first as Dannenberg had told him, pushed along the Careenage Ravine, where the ground left him little room to deploy. He placed 22 12-pounder guns on Shell Hill and West Gut and opened on Home Ridge.

Soimonov's attack (about 7 a.m. to 8 a.m.). British pickets met the Russians in the fog and the Second Division turned out. Instead of falling back to the ridge, as Evans had intended, Pennefather fed most of his men forward to the pickets, fighting the battle in front of Home Ridge. Soimonov's 6th Rifles, then eight battalions of the Tomsk and Kolyvan regiments with the Ekaterinburg regiment in support, came on in column. Minié fire tore them apart, and bayonet counter-attacks by the 49th, 77th and 88th drove them back. Raglan reached Home Ridge by about 7.30, sent for two 18-pounders from the siege park and accepted Bosquet's offer of help. Soimonov himself was shot dead by a British rifleman as the Light Division counter-attacked, and several of his senior officers fell with him; by about 8 a.m. his column was falling back to Shell Hill.

Pavlov and the Sandbag Battery (about 8.30 a.m. to 11 a.m.). Pavlov's leading regiments, the Borodino and Tarutino, struck the British right around 8.30. The Tarutino drove Brigadier Adams's 700 men out of the Sandbag Battery on Fore Ridge back towards Home Ridge. The Duke of Cambridge took the Guards Brigade in to retake it, and the battery changed hands several times in fighting at close quarters. Dannenberg, now in command, threw in Pavlov's second wave, the Okhotsk, Selenginsk and Yakutsk regiments, with Soimonov's survivors. Lord West's mixed force held the Barrier, a breastwork across the post road.

Cathcart's mistake. Cathcart's Fourth Division came up late. Asked where he should help, Pennefather is recorded as replying "Everywhere", and the division was split up. Trying to turn the Russian left, Cathcart led a few hundred men down the slope off the ridge, was caught and killed, and his force broke up.

The French and the guns (mid-morning to early afternoon). Bosquet's first troops, Bourbaki's 6th Line and 7th Light, counter-attacked at the Sandbag Battery; the Zouaves followed and drove the Tarutino regiment back into St Clement's Ravine. The two 18-pounders came into action from Home Ridge (by 9.30 a.m. in one account, late in the battle in another) and silenced the Russian guns on Shell Hill. Gorchakov's diversion stayed largely east of the river, so Bosquet could spare his men. Dannenberg ordered a withdrawal; Raglan pushed troops onto Shell Hill to stop the Russians digging in, and French canister caught the retreating columns. By about 2.30 p.m. the Russians had left Shell Hill and were recrossing the Tchernaya.

Aftermath

Losses were very heavy for the numbers engaged. The British lost about 2,350–2,850 men and the French about 900–1,850, depending on the return used; the Russians lost about 9,800–12,000, including Soimonov and other generals. One account reckons that 24 of the 50 battalions of the Russian field army had been wrecked or put out of action.

The battle settled the campaign without ending it. The Russian field army never again seriously tried to drive the allies off the heights, and the British regarded it as a victory against heavy odds. But the British infantry had been badly mauled and reinforcements were slow, so the assault on Sevastopol the allies had planned for the next day was not made and the siege dragged on into a winter that began with the great storm of 14 November.

The fog gave it its name, "the soldiers' battle": senior officers could see little and small groups fought on their own initiative. Around twenty Victoria Crosses were later awarded for it, and "Inkerman" spread across the Victorian map as a place and street name in Britain, Australia and Canada. Russian writers blamed poor preparation, divided command, the passivity of the reserves and the allied rifles; a modern study calls it Menshikov's "failure to command".

Wargaming it

Inkerman is a defence on a knife-edge, and it suits a brigade-level game in which a figure or base stands for a battalion or a company, or a skirmish-style game for the struggle round the Sandbag Battery. The table is small and broken: Shell Hill and Home Ridge facing each other across about a kilometre, with ravines that funnel attacks and isolate defenders.

Fog is the defining mechanic. Short visibility, hidden movement and command limits let the Russians close before the Minié rifle takes its toll, and keep British commanders from seeing where the real threat is. Without fog the British rifle advantage makes the scenario very one-sided.

Timing matters as much as terrain. The Russian player should face staggered arrivals, Soimonov first and Pavlov delayed by the bridge, while the allied player brings on the Guards, the Fourth Division, the 18-pounders and finally Bosquet's French on a clock. Pennefather's choice to fight forward rather than on the ridge, and Cathcart's descent off the ridge, are good decisions to hand to players.

The what-ifs: Soimonov clearing Victoria Ridge as ordered; Pavlov crossing the Tchernaya on time; Gorchakov actually attacking and pinning Bosquet; or a single Russian commander from the start.

Maps and pictures