The misery of the army was the 'absolute fault of Prince Potemkin', Cobenzl told Joseph. 'It's he who lost a whole year before unhappy Ochakov where the army has suffered more by illness and lack of substance than it would have lost in two battles.'40 Potemkin's critics, especially the Austrians, claimed his delay caused the death of 20,000 men and 2,000 horses, according to the prejudiced Frenchman, the Comte de Langeron, who was not even there.41 Forty to fifty men were said to be dying daily in the hospital.42 'Scarcely any man recovers from dysentery.'43 It is hard to discover how many really died, but Potemkin certainly lost fewer men than earlier generals like Munnich and Rumiantsev-Zadunaisky, both of whose armies were so decimated they could scarcely campaign. The Austrians, who damned him over Ochakov, were in no position to criticize: at exactly the same time, 172,000 of their soldiers were sick; and 33,000 died, more than Potemkin's entire army.44
Yet the foreigners mocked Potemkin's generosity and care of his troops while complaining simultaneously about his brutal indifference. Samoilov, who lived with his forces, admitted there was an 'extraordinary freeze but our troops did not suffer' because Potemkin ensured that they had trench fur- coats, hats and kengi - fur or felt galoshes pulled over their boots - in addition to special tents. They were supplied with meat and vodka and 'hot punch of Riga balsam'.45
Serenissimus distributed a great deal of money among the troops in the field, 'which made them spoilt ... without relieving their wants', claimed Damas, with breathtaking aristocratic prejudice and disdain for the ordinary soldiers.46 Russians understood him better. Potemkin was, wrote his secretary, 'naturally disposed to love humanity'. As for the care of the dying, Tsebrikov saw forty hospital tents that were placed beside Potemkin's tent at his express order so they would be better treated: the Prince visited them to check, the sort of care and concern rarely shown by British generals sixty years later during the Crimean War. Yet Tsebrikov also met a convoy of carts returning from the army, each carrying the bodies of three or four men.47 The army did suffer, many died, but Potemkin's medical care, money, food, clothes and humanitarianism, unparalleled in Russia, may explain the army's survival.
Finally a deserter informed Serenissimus that the Turkish Seraskier (commander) would never surrender and had executed the officers with whom he had been negotiating.48 The Prince still waited.
The Empress herself was becoming impatient. Russia was still at war on two fronts, but the Swedish front had been improved by Greig's defeat of the Swedish navy at Gothland and by the intervention of Denmark, which attacked Sweden's rear. In August, England, Prussia and Holland concluded their Triple Alliance. In Poland, the pent-up resentment of Russian domination exploded in a celebration of liberty. 'A great hatred has risen against us in Poland,' Catherine told Potemkin on 27 November.49 She tried to negotiate the treaty with Poland along the traditional lines, but Prussia outbid her by proposing a treaty that offered the Poles the hope of a stronger constitution and freedom from Russia. Catherine was losing Poland, but Potemkin could free her hands by making a quick peace with the Turks.
'Do please write to me about this quickly and in detail,' the Empress told the Prince, 'so I won't miss anything important and, after the capture of Ochakov, endeavour most of all to start peace negotiations.'50 The ever adaptable Potemkin had already warned Catherine to realign herself closer to Prussia and proposed his Polish alliance: his suggestions had been ignored and his warnings had turned out to be right. He wanted to resign again.51 The Poles, backed now by Prussia, demanded the withdrawal of all Russian troops from their Commonwealth, even though the Russian army in the south depended on Poland for its winter quarters and most of its supplies. It was a further blow. 'If you retire ...', Catherine told him, 'I'll take it as a deathblow.' She begged him to capture Ochakov and place the army in winter quarters. 'There is nothing in the world I want more than your coming here ...', partly to see him after such a long time and partly 'to discuss a lot with you tete-a- tete\5Z
The Prince could not resist saying 'I told you so' to Catherine: 'It's bad in Poland which it wouldn't have been of course with my project but that's how it is.' He proposed pulling the teeth of the Triple Alliance by putting out feelers to Prussia and England and making peace with Sweden. His letter reads like an order to an empress: 'You'll work out later how to get revenge.'53 The secret reports of his homme d'affaires, Garnovsky, from Petersburg suggested that the discontent about Potemkin's handling of Ochakov had now spread to Catherine. The Court had been displeased with the delay as early as August. Alexander Vorontsov and Zavadovsky undermined Potemkin's position and resisted his desire for rapprochement with England and
Prussia. Catherine was 'dissatisfied'.54 Only the arrival of Serenissimus himself would alleviate her state of confusion and vacillation.55
When the remains of the Turkish fleet retired to port for the winter on 4 November, leaving the garrison alone, Potemkin made his plans.56 In late November, the entire cavalry was dismissed to go into winter quarters, a miserable and often fatal march through the snowy wilderness.57 Back at the siege, the Turks made a sortie on 11 November against one of the Potemkin's batteries and killed General S.P. Maximovich, whose head then lolled forlornly on the battlements.58 Lavish snowfalls delayed the denouement.[95]
On 27 November Catherine begged him: Take Ochakov and make peace with the Turks.'59 On 1 December, Potemkin signed his plan to storm the fortress with six columns of roughly 5,000 men each, which would give 30,000, but Fanshawe claimed only 14,500 were left.60 Samoilov, who led one of the columns, says the Prince had waited deliberately until the Liman itself was frozen, so that Ochakov could also be attacked from the sea.61 On the 5th, the order of battle was set during a war council. Damas was assigned to spearhead the column storming the Stamboul Gate. He prepared to die by writing an adieu to his sister, returning the love letters of his Parisian mistress, the Marquise de Coigny - and then spending the evening with his Russian one, Samoilova, until 2 a.m., when he crept back to his tent.
Potemkin himself passed the most important night of his life so far in a dug-out in the forward trenches. The Prince's stubborn valet actually refused to admit Repnin, who had arrived to inform him that the assault was about to start, because he did not dare awaken his master: 'an example of passive obedience unimaginable in any country but Russia'. The Prince of Taurida prayed as the men advanced.62
At 4 a.m. on 6 December, three shells gave the signal. With shouts of hurrah, the columns charged forward towards the entrenchments. The Turks resisted wildly. The Russians gave them no quarter. Damas stormed the Stamboul Gate with his Grenadiers. The moment they were inside, 'the most horrible and unparalleled massacre began forthwith', earning Frederick the Great's nickname for them - 'les oursomanes', half-bear, half-psychopath.63
The Russian soldiers went almost mad with 'fury': even when the garrison surrendered, they ran through the streets killing every man, woman and child they could find - between 8,000 and 11,000 Turks in all - 'like a strong whirlwind', Potemkin told Catherine, 'that in a moment tossed people on to their hearses'.64 This was literally havoc, justified by the Russians as holy war against the infidel. The Turks were killed in such numbers and in such density that they fell in piles, over which Damas and his men trampled, their legs sinking into bleeding bodies. 'We found ourselves covered in gore and shattered brains' - but inside the town. The bodies were so closely packed that Damas had to advance by stepping from body to body until his left foot slipped into a heap of gore, three or four corpses deep, and straight into the mouth of a wounded Turk underneath. The jaws clamped so hard on his heel that they tore away a piece of his boot.65