Then suddenly Potemkin's world collapsed. He learned that the Black Sea Fleet, his beloved creation and the very arsenal of Russian power, had been destroyed in a storm on 9 September. He became almost mad. 'I'm exhausted, Matushka,' he wrote on the 19th. 'I'm good for nothing ... God forbid, if any losses happen, if I haven't died of sorrow, I'll throw my merits at your feet and hide in obscurity ... let me rest, a little. Really I can't stand any more ...'. Yet he was also clear-minded and efficient - the armies were forming, manoeuvring and provisioning - and Kinburn was ready: he had done all he could but that did not help his physical and mental state.50
'Lady Matushka, I've become unlucky,' Potemkin, who so believed in Providence, wrote to his empress on 24 September. 'Despite all the measures I'm taking, everything's gone topsy-turvy. The Sebastopol Fleet has been crushed ... God defeats me, not the Turks.' His sensitive emotions dived towards the very bottom of his cyclothymic nature at the critical moment for which his entire career had been a preparation. He fell into deep despair, though historically his collapse puts him in good company: Peter the Great suffered almost suicidal emotional crises after Narva in 1700, so did Frederick the Great at both Mollwitz in 1740, whence he fled, and Hochkirch in 1758. In our century,51 the best examples of such temporary breakdowns at similarly vital moments were those suffered by Joseph Stalin, faced with the German invasion on 22 June 1941, and Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Chief of Staff, in May 1967, planning the pre-emptive strike of the Six Day War.[80]
The Prince was in such a manic state that he confided in Rumiantsev- Zadunaisky, his old teacher,' 'My career is finished. I've almost gone mad.' He scrawled a second note to Catherine that day, suggesting that Russian abandon the Crimea, his prize, his own title - since, without a fleet in Sebastopol, what was the point of keeping so many troops cooped up there? 'Assign the command to someone else ...', he beseeched her. On God's word he had always been devoted to her. But now: 'Really I'm almost dead.. Л52
2.6
JEWISH COSSACKS AND AMERICAN ADMIRALS: POTEMKIN'S WAR
Prince Potemkin formed the singular project of raising a regiment of Jews ... he intends to make Cossacks of them. Nothing amused me more.
The Prince de Ligne
You would be charmed with the Prince Potemkin than whom no one could be more noble-minded.
John Paul Jones to the Marquis de Lafayette
Catherine rallied the Prince of Taurida. Tn these moments, my dear friend, you are not just a private person who lives, and does what he likes,' she told him on the very day he wrote so desperately. 'You belong to the state, you belong to me.' Nonetheless she sent Potemkin an order, authorizing him to transfer command to Rumiantsev-Zadunaisky if he wished.
When she received his most frantic letters, she displayed her cool good sense. 'Nothing is lost,' she said, like a strict but indulgent German schoolmistress. 'The storm that was so harmful for us was equally harmful for the enemy.' As for withdrawal from the Crimea, there seemed 'no need to rush to start the war by evacuating a province which is not in danger'.[81] She ascribed his depression to what she called the 'excessive sensibility and ardent assiduity' of 'my best friend, foster-child and pupil, who is sometimes even more sane than myself. But this time, I am more vigorous than you because you're ill and I'm well.'1 This was the essence of their partnership: whoever was up would look after whoever was down. War had given the partners more worry but also more to share. Their military discussion often alternated with the warmest declarations of love and friendship.
A week later, Potemkin emerged from his depression, partly thanks to Catherine's letters, but even more because it turned out the fleet was damaged but not ruined: only one ship had been lost. The destruction of the Sebastopol Fleet was such a blow I don't even know how I survived it,' he confessed to his empress. He was relieved he could hand over to Rumiantsev if it became too much. They agreed that she should despatch Prince Nikolai Repnin, a talented general and Panin's nephew, to command the army under him. Serenissimus apologized for giving her such a shock: 'It's not my fault I am so sensitive.'2 She sympathized. In a very eighteenth-century diagnosis, Catherine blamed much of it on his bowels: his spasms 'are nothing but wind', she decreed. 'Order them to give you something to get rid of the wind ... I know how painful they are for people as sensitive and impatient as us.'3
Potemkin had just recovered when the war began in earnest. On the night of 1 October, after a bombardment and several false starts, the Turks landed 5,000 crack Janissaries on Kinburn's thin spit and tried to storm the fortress. The Turks constructed entrenchments. The Russians, under the brilliant Suvorov, charged thrice and finally managed to slaughter virtually the entire Ottoman force, but at a high cost. Suvorov himself was wounded twice. But the victory at Kinburn meant that Kherson and the Crimea were safe until the spring.
'I can't find words to express how I appreciate and respect your important service, Alexander Vasilievich,'4 Potemkin wrote to Suvorov, who was nine years older. The two great eccentrics and outstanding talents of their time had known each other since the First Turkish War. Their tense relationship fizzed with mutual admiration and irritation. Suvorov was a wiry little general with a cadaverous comedian's face, brutal, intelligent eyes and repertoire of zany antics. 'Hero, buffoon, half-demon and half-dirt,' wrote Byron, 'Harlequin in uniform.'5 He rolled naked on the grass every morning, doing somersaults in front of his army, jumped on tables, sang in the midst of high society, mourned a decapitated turkey by trying to return its head to its neck, lived in a straw hut on the beach, stood on one leg at parade and set his armies marching by crowing thrice like a cockerel. He asked his men mad questions such as 'How many fish are there in the Danube?' The correct answer was a firm one. 'God save us from the "Don't knows",' he used to exclaim.6
Soon after Kinburn, a young French volunteer was writing a letter when his tent was unceremoniously opened and a scarecrow entered, wearing just a shirt. This 'fantastical apparition' asked to whom he was writing. To his sister in Paris, he replied. 'But I want to write a letter too,' said Suvorov, grabbing a pen and writing her a complete letter. When the sister received it, she said it was mostly unreadable - and the rest utterly crazy. The Frenchman decided 'I had to deal with a lunatic.' Legend has it that Suvorov once heard Catherine saying, vis-a-vis Potemkin, that all great men were eccentrics. Suvorov immediately began daily affecting a new singularity which in the end became second nature. Yet he spoke six foreign languages and was a connoisseur of ancient history and literature.7
Suvorov, who like Potemkin advocated informal, easy clothes and simple tactics of attack, was unlike the Prince in his ruthless, very Russian lack of concern for the lives of his men. The bayonet was his favourite weapon: 'Cold steel - bayonets and sabres! Push the enemy over, hammer them down, don't lose a moment.' Never trust the musket, 'that crazy bitch'. He always wanted to storm and charge regardless of losses: speed and impact were everything. His greatest battles, Ismail and Praga, were bloodbaths.8 Every commander- in-chief needs a Suvorov. Potemkin was lucky to have him but he used him skilfully.[82]
Serenissimus now hailed Suvorov as 'my dear friend' and sent him endless presents from a greatcoat to a hamper of 'pate de Perigord' - foie gras.9 He urged Catherine to promote Suvorov above his seniority: 'Who Matushka could have such leonine courage?' He should be given Russia's highest order, the St Andrew. 'Who has deserved the distinction more than him? ... I begin with myself - give him mine!'10 Potemkin's alleged jealousy of his subordinate became part of the Suvorov legend, but there is no trace of it in any of Potemkin's letters and it would have seemed absurd during their lifetimes: Potemkin was supreme and Suvorov was just one of his generals. Suvorov was so moved by Potemkin's affectionate letters that he wrote back, 'I am a commoner! How can it be I was not flattered by Your Highness's favour! The key to the secrets of my soul lie in your hands for ever.'11 Suvorov was Potemkin's match in eccentricity and talent: contrary to the mythology of their hatred, they admired each other. Indeed their passionate, half-mad letters almost read like a love affair. 'You can't oversuvorov Suvorov,' joked Serenissimus.