There was so much plunder that soldiers captured handfuls of diamonds, pearls and gold that could be bought round the camp the next day for almost nothing. No one even bothered to steal silver. Potemkin saved an emerald the size of an egg for his Empress.66 'Turkish blood flowed like rivers,' Russian soldiers sang as they marched into the next century. 'And the Pasha fell to his knees before Potemkin.'67
The Seraskier of Ochakov, a tough old pasha, was brought bare-headed before Serenissimus, who veered between grief and exultation. 'We owe this bloodshed to your obstinacy,' said the Prince. If Ochakov had surrendered, they could have avoided all this. The Seraskier seemed surprised to find a commander so moved by the loss of life. 'I've done my duty,' shrugged Seraskier Hussein-Pasha, 'and you yours. Fate turned against us.' He had only persisted, he added with Oriental flattery, in order to render His High- ness's victory all the more brilliant. Potemkin ordered that the Seraskier's lost turban be found in the ruins.
By 7 a.m., after four hours of savage fighting, Ochakov was Russian.* Potemkin ordered a stop to the slaughter, which was instantly obeyed. Special measures were taken to protect the clothes and jewels of women and to look after the wounded. All witnesses, even the foreigners, agreed that Potemkin's assault was 'excellent' and shrewdly planned in relation to the fortifications.68
The Prince entered Ochakov with his entourage and seraglio - 'handsome Amazons who delighted', according to the Grand Dukes' mathematics tutor Charles Masson, 'in visiting fields of battle and admiring the fine corpses of Turks as they lay on their backs, scimitars in hand'.69 Stories already abounded, even before detailed reports had reached Petersburg, of Potemkin's luxurious negligence towards the wounded. 'As they rarely report the truth about me,' Potemkin corrected the gossip to Catherine, 'they lie here too.' Serenissimus turned his palatial tent into a hospital, moving to live in a small dug-out.70
Damas ran up to join Potemkin and his 'nieces' - especially Ekaterina Samoilova, who evidently gave him a delicious prize. 'This particular form of happiness ... has never before rewarded any man so promptly for a morning of such cruel joy. Most men have to wait until they return to their capital,'
including Samoilova's long-suffering husband, no doubt.71
Lieutenant-Colonel Bauer, the fastest world traveller in Russia, galloped off to inform the Empress. When he arrived, Catherine was asleep, ill and tense. Mamonov awoke her. 'I was poorly,' said the Empress, 'but you have cured me.' Potemkin wrote to her the next day - 'I congratulate you with the fortress,' 310 cannons and 180 banners; 9,500 Turks were killed and 2,500 Russians. 'Oh, how sorry I am for them,' wrote the Prince.72
Massacres are easy to make and hard to clear up. There were so many Turkish bodies that they could not all be buried, even if the ground had been soft enough to do so. The cadavers were piled in carts and taken out to the Liman where they were dumped on the ice. Still moist with gore, they froze there into macabre blood-blackened pyramids. The Russian ladies took their sledges out on to the ice to admire them.73
Catherine was triumphant: 'I take you by the ears with both my hands and kiss you, my dear friend ... You've shut everybody's mouths and this successful event gives you the chance to show generosity to those who criticize you blindly and stupidly.'74 No longer able to hide their incompetence behind Potemkin, the Austrians were almost disappointed. 'Taking Ochakov is very advantageous to continue the war,' Joseph told Kaunitz in Vienna. 'But not to make peace.'75 Courtiers now laughed at Ligne, who had been 'singing at the top of his voice' that Ochakov would not be taken that year.76 Potemkin's critics rushed to write sycophantic letters.77 'There's a man who never goes by the ordinary road,' said Littlepage, 'but still arrives at his goal.'78
'Те Deums' were sung on 16 December to the boom of 101 cannons. 'Public joy was great.' Bauer, promoted to colonel and presented with a gold snuffbox with diamonds, was sent back bearing a diamond-set star of St George and a diamond-encrusted sword, worth 60,000 roubles, for the Prince of Taurida.79 Potemkin was exhausted but did not rest on his laurels. There was much to do before he could return to Petersburg. In one of his bursts of euphoric energy, he inspected the new naval yards at Vitovka, decided to found a new town called Nikolaev, then toured Kherson to review the fleet. But his most important job was to garrison Ochakov, send the fleet back to Sebastopol, convert the Turkish prizes into sixty-two-gun ships-of-the-line, and settle the army in winter quarters. This was no easy task, since Poland was increasingly hostile, emboldened by the Anglo-Prussian alliance.
The Prince called again for ditente with Prussia. Catherine disagreed and suggested western European affairs were her department. 'My lady, I am not a cosmopolitan,' replied Potemkin. 'I don't give a jot about Europe but, when it intervenes in affairs entrusted to me, there's no way I can be indifferent.' This is clear evidence of the partners' division of responsibilities and Potemkin's refusal to be bound by even that. As for the Prussians, 'I'm not in love with the Prussian King' nor afraid of his troops. He just thought 'they should be disdained less than the rest'.80
At last, Serenissimus headed towards Petersburg. 'I shall take you there myself,' he told Damas. 'We mustn't be separated. I myself will undertake the arrangements.'81 The sledges were ready. The Prince and Damas climbed into those cockpits like baby's cradles and wrapped themselves in furs and leather. 'Are you ready?', Potemkin's muffled voice called to Damas. 'I've ordered that you are to stay close to me.' A lackey jumped on to the seats on the back of the sledges and whipped the horses, which sped into the night, escorted on all sides by Cossacks holding burning torches. Damas was left behind, only catching up at Mogilev. He just wanted to sleep; but, wherever the Prince arrived, the local governors and nobility had the garrison on parade and a fete awaiting him. Damas was led straight out of his sledge and into a 'magnificent ball', where 'the whole town were assembled'. The Prince waved aside Damas' worries about either his clothes or his fatigue, summoned all the girls and 'without further ado, he brought me a partner, whereupon ... I danced until six in the morning'. By noon, they were on the road again.82
Petersburg awaited the Prince's return with the dread and excitement of the Second Coming. 'AH the town is worried by waiting for His Highness,' reported Garnovsky. 'There is no other conversation except this.' The diplomats watched the road - especially the Prussians and the English. A British diplomat got drunk at Naryshkin's and shouted a toast to Potemkin. One disappointed but ever hopeful American corsair, John Paul Jones, also eagerly anticipated the Prince, who would decide his destiny. 'The Prince has not yet arrived,' Zavadovsky complained to Field-Marshal Rumiantsev-Zadunaisky. 'Without him - nothing.'83
Catherine followed his swift journey, which reminded of her of a bird's migration, 'and you wonder why you get tired. If you arrive here ill, I'll pull your ears at our first encounter - however glad I am to see you.'84 But Catherine remained edgy, besieged on all sides by wars, coalitions and Court intrigues. Mamonov was a comfort but little help in affairs of state: besides he was now always ill. Catherine fretted about her consort's welcome - especially when she realized that she had raised triumphal arches to Prince Orlov and Rumiantsev-Zadunaisky yet forgotten Serenissimus. 'But Your Majesty knows him so well that she does not need to keep accounts,' replied her secretary, Khrapovitsky. 'True,' she said, 'but he's human too and maybe he'd like it.' So she ordered the marble gate at Tsarskoe Selo illuminated and decorated with an appropriately ambiguous ode by her Court poet, Petrov: 'You'll enter Sophia Cathedral with clapping.' This referred to Istanbul's Agia Sophia again. Catherine mused that Potemkin might 'be in Constantinople this year but don't tell me about it all of a sudden'.85 The road was lit up for six miles, day and night. The guns of the fortress were to be fired - the prerogative of the Sovereign. 'Is the Prince loved in the town?', she asked her valet, Zakhar Zotov. 'Only by God and You,' he bravely replied. Catherine did not mind. She said she was too ill to let him go to the south again. 'My God,' she murmured, 'I need the Prince now.'86