On another coast of the Black Sea, there was more good news: on 30 September, General Herman eliminated a 25,ooo-strong Turkish army and captured Batal-Pasha. 'We hardly lost 40 men!', Potemkin told Bezborodko.104 Nearer home, he ordered the taking of Kilia on the Danube, which failed bloodily on the first attempt because Ribas had not yet managed to destroy the Turkish Danube flotilla. Potemkin attempted a second storming and Kilia fell on 18 October 1790.105 Ribas broke into the Danube two days later and took Tulcha and Isackcha, as he worked his way up towards mighty Ismail. The Prince trusted and admired Ribas. 'Having you there,' he wrote, 'I leave it under your command.'106 By the end of November, the entire lower Danube as far as Galatz was his - except for Ismail. Potemkin decided to take the fortress. 'I will make an attempt on Ismail,' he said, 'but I don't want to lose ten men.'107
Far to the west, Richelieu, Langeron and the Prince de Ligne's son Charles were dining in Vienna, where they had gone to grumble about Potemkin's inactivity, when they heard of Batal-Pasha's defeat and the investment of Ismail. They left immediately and galloped to re-enlist with Potemkin at Bender. 'I beg Your Highness to let me rejoin the army before Ismail,' Langeron wrote to him.108 No young sabre wanted to miss the assault - the climax of Potemkin's military career and one of the bloodiest days of the century.
SEA OF SLAUGHTER: ISMAIL
All that the devil would do if run stark mad, All that defies the worst which pen expresses,
All which by hell is peopled, or as sad As hell, mere mortals who their power abuse Was here (as heretofore and since) let loose.
Lord Byron, the storming of Ismail, Don Juan, Canto VIII: 123
On 23 November 1790, some 31,000 Russian troops, under Lieutenant- Generals Ivan Gudovich, Pavel Potemkin and Alexander Samoilov, and the flotilla, commanded by Major-General de Ribas, invested indomitable Ismail. The season was late; sickness decimated the hungry army. Only the tough and talented Ribas had the stomach for an assault. The other three generals argued among themselves. None had the prestige on his own to force through the storming of an almost impregnable fortress.1 Ismail was built into a natural amphitheatre which was defended by 265 cannons and a garrison of 35,000 men, the strength of a medium-sized army. It was a semi-circle of formidable walls, deep ditches, interlocking towers, perpendicular palisades and redoubts, with the River Danube as the flat diameter. French and German engineers had recently reinforced its 'brilliantly constructed' battlements.2
Potemkin watched from Bender because, if Ismail did not fall, he did not wish the prestige of the entire army to be affected.3 The Prince saw no need to live more austerely at this crucial moment. On the contrary, he continued to suffer from a surfeit of choice on the feminine front. His ardour for Princess Dolgorukaya was cooling. The rising 'sultana', Madame de Witte, remained at his side. Countess Branicka was said to be on her way, and 'Madame L.' - the wife of General Lvov - 'is coming and bringing a young girl of fifteen or sixteen, beautiful as Cupid', a courtesan and the 'Prince's latest victim', reported a well-informed if hostile witness.4 He appeared as sybaritic as ever. He was 'enchanted' when Richelieu, Langeron and young Ligne arrived in Bender, but he did not mention whether he was going to storm Ismail or not. Langeron asked, but 'no one opened their mouths'. The three joined the army at Ismail.5
ismail 449
Unbeknown to the generals in Ismail and most historians of the siege, the Prince had already decided that the commanders on the scene were not capable of taking the city. He had therefore summoned the one man he knew could take it, Suvorov. 'With God's help, capture the town,' Potemkin wrote to him on 25 November, adding, 'there are a lot of generals there of equal rank and so it's turned into a sort of indecisive parliament'. The Prince advised Suvorov that Ismail's walls on the river side were the weakest and he recommended only two soldiers on the spot: 'Ribas will help you ... and you'll be pleased with Kutuzov.' On both counts, posterity would agree with Potemkin's judgement. 'Make the arrangements and, with a prayer to God, do it.'6 Suvorov set off immediately for Ismail.
The camp there was a picture of Russian administrative chaos and poor leadership. The Prince had ordered the artillery forward and demanded the capture of the city 'at any cost'.7 On 25 November (the same day Potemkin had summoned Suvorov), Gudovich chaired a faltering war council at which Ribas demanded a full assault and the others vacillated. Ribas appealed to the Prince, who secretly wrote back, on 28 November, that Suvorov was on his way and so 'all difficulties will be swept away'. On 2 December, Gudovich held another council and ordered a retreat. Ribas was furious. 'The comedy is over,'8 wrote a disgusted officer to a friend. They repacked the artillery; the troops began to march away. Ribas appealed to the Prince while his flotilla rowed back to Galatz.9
At Bender, Potemkin maintained his insouciant and debauched facade, never letting on that Suvorov was on his way to take command. He was said to be playing cards with his harem when Madame de Witte, pretending to tell his fortune, foretold he would take Ismail within three weeks. Potemkin laughed that he had a more infallible way than fortune-telling - Suvorov - as if he had just had the idea over cards. Serenissimus enjoyed playing such games with his gullible courtiers - but his obscurity was deliberate. Indeed he boasted to Catherine that he had kept his true intentions from the enemy and his own staff. 'The slaughterer must never show his knife,' he once wrote. 'Secrecy is the soul of war.'10
When news of Gudovich's withdrawal reached the disdainful Prince, he treated the general to a dose of his sarcasm and appointed him to command the Caucasus and Kuban corps: 'I can see you had a huge discussion about actions against Ismail but I don't find anything harmful to the enemy ... As you have not seen the Turks at close quarters except after they've been captured, I'm sending you General Suvorov who will show you how ...'." Potemkin knew it was impossible to 'oversuvorov Suvorov.'
Count Suvorov-Rimniksky approached Ismail, turned back the retreating troops and recalled Ribas's flotilla. Suvorov entered the camp on 2 December, looking more 'like a Tartar than the general of a European army', a little scarecrow riding all alone except for one Cossack orderly.12 Despite (or perhaps because of) his peculiarities, spending nights singing, eating on the floor at odd times and rolling naked on the ground, Suvorov inspired confidence. He reorganized the artillery batteries, oversaw the making of ladders and fascines to fill the ditches, and trained the troops on mock-ups of the walls. Serenissimus waited tensely in Bender - but he deliberately gave Suvorov a narrow escape-route if he really judged Ismail impregnable. This was not uncertainty, simply a sensible reminder to Suvorov not to risk Russian men and prestige if the assault was impossible. After all, the Turks were convinced Ismail really was impregnable.13