Serenissimus replied: ‘When I heard last year he was sending her fruits from the table, I understood it at once but I had no exact evidence to cite in front of you, Matushka. However, I hinted. I felt sorry for you, my foster-mother, and his rudeness and feigned illnesses were even more intolerable.’ Potemkin despised Mamonov’s ‘blend of indifference and egotism…Narcissus to an extreme degree’, advising her to make the ingrate envoy to Switzerland.32 Instead Count and Countess Mamonov were sent to Moscow to stew in their own juices.
‘A sacred place’, Zavadovsky rightly said, ‘is never empty for long.’33 Catherine had already found Mamonov’s replacement but she wanted to settle herself before telling Potemkin. Even in her first letter, Potemkin’s eye must have been drawn to the reference to a young man she nicknamed ‘le Noiraud’ – ‘Blackie’ – with whom Catherine was getting acquainted. As early as three days after Mamonov’s declaration, Catherine started to see more of Blackie: her valet and secretary both suspected an affair was developing.34 He was a protégé of Anna Naryshkina and Count Nikolai Saltykov, head of the Grand Duke Paul’s household and a critic of Potemkin. As the entire court knew that Mamonov was in love with Shcherbatova, they lost no time in pushing Blackie towards the Empress, because they knew that Potemkin would intervene if they waited. The Prince could not choose Catherine’s lovers but he liked to ensure they were not hostile. There is no doubt that Blackie’s backers intended to undermine Potemkin, knowing that war prevented him from returning as he had after Lanskoy’s death. In June 1789, this ailing Empress, tormented with war and dyspepsia, was far more likely to take what she was offered than at any other time in her life. Perhaps her happiness became more important than her dignity.
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Blackie was Platon Alexandrovich Zubov, Catherine’s last favourite. He was probably the handsomest of all. Aged twenty-two, Zubov was muscular yet frail, pretty and dark – hence Catherine’s nickname for him – but his expression was brittle, vain, cold. His frequent illnesses suited Catherine’s maternal instincts. He had been at Court since the age of eleven – Catherine had paid for him to study abroad. This popinjay was clever in a shallow and silly way, but he was neither imaginative nor curious, nor able, merely greedy and ambitious. None of this mattered in a favourite. Potemkin helped her run the Empire and fight the war. Zubov was her companion and pupil in her work for the Empire. ‘I’m doing quite well by the state,’ she said disingenuously, ‘by educating young men.’35
Zubov’s ascension to greatness followed a familiar rhythm: the Court noticed the youngster offer his arm to Catherine in the evening. He wore a new uniform with a large feather in the hat. After her card game, he was summoned to accompany Catherine to her apartments and took possession of the favourite’s rooms, where he possibly found a cash present. The day after that, the antechamber of the ‘new idol’ was filled with petitioners.36 On 3 July, Zubov was promoted to colonel in the Horse-Guards and adjutant-general, and significantly he gave a 2,000 rouble watch to his sponsor Naryshkina. Zubov’s patrons already feared Potemkin’s reaction and warned him to show respect to ‘His Highness’.37
Catherine fell in love.38 She was almost swelling with admiration for Blackie. ‘We love this child who is really very interesting,’ she declared, protesting too much. Her joy had the mawkishness of an old woman in the throes of a sexual infatuation with a youth almost forty years younger, as she told Potemkin: ‘I am fat and merry, come back to life like a fly in summer.’39 Ordering some French books for Zubov, she even made a ponderous but unusually risqué joke to her secretary. One of the books was called Lucine without commerce – a letter in which it is demonstrated that a woman can give birth without commerce with a man. Catherine laughed: ‘That’s a revelation, and in ancient times, Mars, Jupiter and the other gods provided the excuse.’40 But she nervously waited for the Prince of Taurida’s reaction.
‘Your peace of mind is most necessary,’ he wrote cautiously, ‘and for me it’s dearer than anything,’ but he did not expect any political harm since ‘your mercy is with me.’41 But Potemkin did not pass judgement on her choice of Zubov. Catherine could not quite bring herself to mention the youngster by name to Potemkin, but she could not resist raving about his prettiness: ‘Blackie has very beautiful eyes.’ She restated their secret partnership: ‘You are right when you write that you have my mercy and there are no circumstances to harm you…Your villains will have no success with me.’ In return, she begged for Potemkin’s approval of her new love: ‘Comfort me, caress us.’42
Soon she was making Zubov write flattering letters to her consort, to recreate their ‘family’: ‘Here I enclose for you an admiring letter from the most innocent soul…who has a good heart and a sweet way of thinking.’ She added hopefully: ‘Think what a fatal situation it would be for my health without this man. Adieu mon ami, be nice to us.’43 When he was ‘nice’, the Empress actually thanked him for his approval: ‘It is a great satisfaction for me, my friend, that you are pleased with me and little Blackie…I hope he doesn’t become spoilt.’44 That was too much to hope. Zubov spent hours in front of the mirror having his hair curled. He arrogantly let his pet monkey pull the wigs off venerable petitioners. ‘Potemkin was indebted to his elevation almost solely to himself,’ recalled Masson, who knew both men. ‘Zubov owed his to the infirmities of Catherine.’45
Zubov’s rise is always described as a political disaster for Potemkin, but its significance has been exaggerated by hindsight. The Prince’s first interest was for Catherine to find a favourite to leave him to run the Empire and to make her happy. He was not sorry to see the end of Mamonov, originally his choice, because he had become disrespectful to Catherine. When he was in Petersburg in February, it was rumoured he was pushing his own candidate46 – and one source suggests it was Zubov’s younger brother Valerian, which would mean that, whoever their friends were, the Zubovs were not regarded as inherently hostile. Indeed Potemkin liked the brave and able Valerian and promoted him wherever possible.47 Damas, who was with Potemkin, did not notice any particular antipathy towards the Zubovs.48 Potemkin and Zubov now began the usual correspondence – young favourite paying court to older consort. Every favourite dreamed of supplanting the Prince. The danger was now greater because of Catherine’s age. But Potemkin’s prestige and power increased throughout the war. So Zubov was politically inconvenient – but no more than a pinprick.
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Serenissimus granted his approval slowly: ‘My dear Matushka, how can I not sincerely love the man who makes you happy? You may be sure I will have a frank friendship with him because of his attachment to you.’ But he had more exciting news: victory.49
The Ottoman corps of 30,000 suddenly jabbed towards Fokshany in Moldavia, where 12,000 Austrians guarded Potemkin’s right flank. Coburg, the stodgy Austrian commander, was in no doubt of his own limitations and called for Russian help. Potemkin had specifically ordered Suvorov to prevent any concentration of the Turks or attempt to divide the allied forces. As soon as Suvorov received Coburg’s message, he informed Potemkin and force-marched his 5,000 Russians to intervene so aggressively that the Turkish commander presumed they must be the vanguard of an army. On 20/21 July 1789 at the Battle of Fokshany, Suvorov’s tiny but disciplined corps, assisted by the Austrians, routed the Turks, killing over 1,500 while losing only a few hundred men. The Turks fled towards Bucharest.50
The Grand Vizier’s huge army was on the move again. Suvorov hurried back to his post. Potemkin crossed the Dniester on 12 August and turned southwards to set up his headquarters at Dubossary. All eyes were on the Grand Vizier: Potemkin kept his army between Dubossary and Kishnev, and rushed over to Ochakov and Kherson to prepare them for the planned Turkish attack from the sea.
At his Headquarters at Dubossary, Serenissimus lived sumptuously in a residence ‘as splendid as the Vizier’s’. William Gould, the emperor of landscapers, created an
instant English garden on the spot.51 Sarti’s orchestra played all day. Many generals have travelled with mistresses and servants, but only Potemkin went to war with an army of gardeners and violinists. It seemed as if he planned to spend the rest of his life there.52
The Vizier correctly identified the ‘hinge’ between the allied armies as Potemkin’s weakest point, so he launched two thrusts. The old Crocodile, Ghazi Hassan, sortied out of Ismail with a corps of 30,000, and lunged across the Pruth to draw Potemkin’s main army. But Potemkin kept his army in place and despatched Repnin to parry the thrust and if possible take mighty Ismail: he pursued the now land-lubbing Algerian sailor and his corps all the way back to the fortress. Once there, Repnin wasted time and did nothing.
On 1 September, Potemkin gave specific orders to Suvorov about the Vizier’s army. ‘If the enemy appears anywhere in your direction, attack him, having asked for God’s mercy, and don’t let him concentrate.’53 Just after getting Potemkin’s orders on 4 September, Suvorov received a second call for help from Coburg. The Grand Vizier was approaching Fokshany, bearing down on Coburg’s 18,000 with an army of 90,000. Suvorov replied to Coburg: ‘Coming. Suvorov’.54 He just had time to send off a courier to the Prince before he embarked his 7,000 men on a Spartan forced-march of 100 versts, across flooded rivers, which he covered in two and a half days.
Potemkin fretted that he would not make it in time.55 On the same day that he ordered Suvorov to be ready, he devised a complex amphibious operation to attack a vital Ottoman fortified port called Hadjibey, the future Odessa. The land forces advanced from Ochakov supported by a flotilla made up of Zaporogian chaiki and other oar-propelled gunboats, commanded by that talented Neapolitan adventurer José de Ribas, whose rear was covered by the ships-of-the-line of the Black Sea Fleet. Potemkin himself led his army forward towards Kaushany in case Repnin or Suvorov required his assistance. These sophisticated manoeuvres belie Potemkin’s unjust reputation as a military incompetent.56
Suvorov found Coburg cowed before the Grand Vizier’s encampment on the River Rymnik. The Turks outnumbered the allies four to one. On 8 September, Potemkin ordered Suvorov to ‘assist Prince Coburg in attacking the enemy but not in defence ‘. On 11 September, the allies attacked. The Turks fought with their old fanaticism, throwing wave after wave of Janissaries and Spahis against Suvorov’s squares. They just held for two hours. Then the allied troops advanced, shouting ‘Catherine’ and ‘Joseph’. Potemkin’s new light forces – his Jaegers, mobile sharpshooters, and cavalry, Carabiniers and Cossacks – proved themselves as adept and swift as Ottoman forces. The Turks were annihilated, 15,000 died on the ‘cruel battlefield’.57 The Grand Vizier, as Potemkin boasted to his erstwhile friend Ligne, ‘fled like a boy’.58
The elated Serenissimus lavished praise on Suvorov: ‘I embrace and kiss you sincerely, my dear friend, your indefatigable zeal makes me wish I could have you everywhere!’ Suvorov embraced him back: ‘I’m kissing your precious letter and remain in deepest respect, Serenissimus, Merciful Lord!’ Their exultation was based on mutual respect: the strategy was Potemkin’s; the tactics belonged to Suvorov’s genius. Potemkin followed up Suvorov’s triumph on land and sea. He took Kaushany on 13 September. Next day, Ribas captured Hadjibey. The Prince ordered the Sebastopol fleet out to sea to attack the Ottomans.
He then advanced on the two most potent Ottoman fortresses on the Dniester. Wielding the memory of the bloodbath of Ochakov as his weapon, Potemkin hoped to get them ‘cheap’. First there were the towering ramparts of Akkerman (Belgrade-on-Dniester) that commanded the mouth of the river. When the Turkish fleet headed back to Istanbul, Potemkin ordered the taking of Akkerman. It surrendered on 30 September. The Prince rushed down to inspect it and returned through Kishnev, struggling to arrange the provisioning of the armies as Poland closed its doors.*3
Serenissimus turned to the greatest prize on the Dniester: the famous fortress of Bender, built high on an escarpment above the river in a modern fortified square with four formidable towers and a 20,000-strong garrison, a small army.59 Potemkin moved to besiege the fortress, but he also opened negotiations. On 4 November, he got his wish. He later enjoyed telling Catherine the ‘Miraculous Case’ of Bender’s eight generals, who dreamed that they had either to surrender or perish. They went to the Pasha and told him the story. The dreaming Turks were obviously looking for a somnolent excuse to avoid a Russian assault, but this life-saving parable amused Potemkin.60 Bender surrendered; Potemkin took 300 cannons – in return for letting the garrison march out. The surrender document, now in Potemkin’s papers,61 catches the elaborate formality of the stultified Ottoman bureaucracy, but it also referred to the Prince in terms not given to the Grand Vizier but only to the Sultan himself.*4
Bender was Potemkin’s ideal conquest, not costing Russia a single man. Success was infectious: Joseph congratulated Potemkin, but in an unpublished letter to Ligne he grasped Potemkin’s true achievement: ‘It’s an art to besiege forts and take them by force…but to make yourself master in this way is the greatest art of all.’ It would be Potemkin’s ‘most beautiful glory’.62
The Grand Vizier would not have agreed: after Rymnik, the Sultan had him killed in Shumla, while the Seraskier of Bender was beheaded in Istanbul: four months later, the British Ambassador noticed his head still rotting outside the Seraglio.63
‘Well Matushka, did it come off according to my plan?’,64 the euphoric Potemkin asked Catherine. Triumph made him playful, so he wrote her this ditty:
Nous avons pris neuf lançons
Sans perdre un garçon
Et Bender avec trois Pashas
Sans perdre un chat.65*5
Serenissimus’ reaction to Suvorov’s victory at Rymnik could not have been more generous: ‘Really Matushka, he deserves your favour and the fighting was vital, I am thinking what to give him…Peter the Great granted Counts for nothing. How about giving him [a title] with the surname of “Rymniksky”?’66 Potemkin was proud that Russians had rescued Austrians, who had been on the verge of running away. He asked her to ‘show grace to Suvorov’ and ‘shame the sponger-generals who aren’t worth their salaries’.67
Catherine got the message. She gave Suvorov the title and a diamond-studded sword engraved ‘Conqueror of the Grand Vizier’. Potemkin thanked her for Suvorov’s reward (Joseph made him an imperial count too) and gave every soldier a rouble.68 When he sent all Suvorov’s rewards – a ‘whole wagon’69 of diamonds and the Cross of St George 1st degree – he told the new Count, ‘You would of course obtain equal glory and victories at any time; but not every chief would inform you about the rewards with pleasure as great as mine.’ Once again, these two brilliant and overly emotional eccentrics outdid each other. ‘I can hardly see the daylight for tears of joy!’, declared Suvorov-Rymniksky. ‘Long live Prince Grigory Alexandrovich…He is an honest man, a kind man, a great man!’70
Potemkin was the hero of the hour, going from ‘conquest to conquest’, as Catherine told Ligne: he had now taken the entire Dniester and Bug and the land between them.71 ‘Te Deums’ were sung in Petersburg; 101 cannons were fired. If power is an aphrodisiac, victory is love itself: Catherine wrote to him as if they were almost lovers again. ‘Your present campaign is brilliant! I love you very, very much.’72 But they were still discussing how to react to Prussian pressure to undermine Russian gains against the Turks. She told him she was taking his advice about the Prussians: ‘We are caressing the Prussians,’ though it was not easy to tolerate their ‘abuse’. She told him that Zubov had wanted to see Potemkin’s art collection and apartments in the house on Millionaya, so Catherine took him on a tour and noticed that the décor was a bit shabby for a conquering hero. She had it redecorated, lavishing white damask on the bedroom and hanging his collection for him. She signed off: ‘I love you with all my heart.’73
Meanwhile the Austrians, now in the sure hands of Loudon, had taken the Balkan Belgrade on 19 September, whil
e Bucharest fell to Coburg. The ‘Te Deums’ for the two Belgrades (the other was Akkerman – Belgrade-on-Dniester) were sung in Petersburg simultaneously.
Victory accelerated a cult of the Prince as Mars. Catherine had cast a medallion of his profile to commemorate Ochakov. The sculptor, Shubin, was carving a bust.74 So she lectured Potemkin on stardom like the sensible mother of a famous son. ‘Don’t be too bumptious,’ she wrote, ‘but show the world the greatness of your soul.’75 Potemkin understood that ‘everything good is given to me by God’, but he was a little hurt. He threatened to retire to a bishopric.76 Catherine replied: ‘A monastery will never be the home of a man whose name is trumpeted across Asia and Europe – it’s too small for him.’77
In Vienna, where even Joseph was now popular, the Prince’s name was cheered in the theatres and the women wore belts and rings emblazoned ‘Potemkin’. He could not resist telling Catherine all about it and sent her Princess Esterhazy’s ‘Potemkin’ ring. After her lecture, he was careful not to boast too much to the Empress, who was so like him in her love of glory: ‘Since I am yours, then my successes too belong directly to you.’78
The ailing Kaiser urged Potemkin to make a peace rendered more desirable by ‘the bad intentions of our joint enemies’ – the Prussians.79 Surely now the Turks would be ready. Potemkin set up Court in Jassy, the Moldavian capital, to winter like a sultan, revel in his mistresses, build his towns, create his regiments – and negotiate peace with the Sublime Porte. Now he was emperor of all he surveyed. He lived in Turkish palaces; his Court was ever more exotic – Kabardian princes and Persian ambassadors; his girls, whether Russian or not, behaved like odalisques. The heat, the distances, the years away from Petersburg, changed the man. His enemies began to compare him to the semi-mythical seventh-century bc Assyrian tyrant, famed for his capricious extravagance, voluptuous decadence and martial victories – Sardanapalus.
Catherine the Great & Potemkin Page 66