Simon Sebag Montefiore - Prince of Princes -The Life of Potemkin

class="book">[87] Ligne's letters give only half the story; Potemkin's archives hold the other half. Ligne's claims that Potemkin was lying about his victories on other fronts were accepted by historians but are actually themselves false. Potemkin's espionage network, revealed by his archives, kept him informed of events across his huge theatre of operations: he received regular reports from the Governor of the Polish fortress Kamenets-Podolsky, General de Witte, who explained how he had managed to get spies into Turkish Khotin in a consignment of butter - though the fact that the sister of Witte's Greek wife was married to the Pasha of Khotin might also have helped.

[88] In the process, he invented an amphibious cart, perhaps the first amphibious landing craft; a floating timebomb; an early torpedo; and bottlebombs filled with inflammable liquid that had to be lit and then thrown - 160 years before Molotov cocktails. Perhaps they should be called 'Bentham' or 'Potemkin cocktails'.

[89] Potemkin wrote to him: 'Sir, Her Imperial Majesty distinguishing the bravery shown by you against the Turks on the Liman of Ochakov ... has graciously been pleased to present you with a sword inscribed to commemorate your valour..

[90] Today, though the fortifications are gone, one can stand on the ramparts where the walls stood and look down on the length of the Liman and the encampments of the Russian besiegers. Far to the left is the mouth of the Bug. Opposite on its own narrow spit stands the Russian fortress of Kinburn. Near by to the right, at the end of the Ochakov spit, the Hassan-Pasha Redoubt still has an awesome power. The cobbles of the streets are almost all that remain. The modern town of Ochakov is behind.

[91] Since it became a rule of Russian history that Suvorov was a genius, it followed that he was simply trying to begin the storming of Ochakov out of frustration at Potemkin's inept hesitancy. This is possible but unlikely, since Suvorov had no artillery behind him. It was a bungled operation by a tipsy and fallible general who was capable of costly mistakes as well as brilliant victories.

[92] Most of the heroes of 1812 fought under Potemkin - the future Field-Marshal and Prince Mikhail Barclay de Tolly, Minister of War and Commander of the First Army under Kutuzov at Borodino, also served at Ochakov.

f Yet even Ligne had to admit to Joseph II that the camp was tidy, the soldiers well paid and the light cavalry in excellent state, even if they did no manoeuvres or practice.

$ There were sound military reasons for not storming until the fleet had control over the Liman and until artillery had arrived, which did not happen until August.

[93] Potemkin was not alone in delaying: when Ligne rode off to join Rumiantsev-Zadunaisky, he found him just as inactive, while Count Nikolai Saltykov ostentatiously delayed his attack on Khotin. It was Russian policy as well as Russian habit - as Kutuzov was to demonstrate to such effect in 1812.

[94] Back at Gatchina, Grand Duke Paul's microcosm of Prussian paradomania, the Tsarevich was disgusted by this harem at war and sneeringly demanded where in Vauban's siege instructions did it say that nieces were necessary to take cities. This was rich since Paul himself had asked to take his wife to the war with him in 1787.

t Colonel Bentham was to command two battalions on the Chinese-Mongolian border, create a regimental school, discover new lands, form alliances with Mongols, Kalmyks and Kirghiz and open trading with Japan and Alaska. He also devised a Potemkinian plan to defeat China with 100,000 men. In 1790 he headed back via Petersburg to Potemkin's headquarters in Bender to report to the Prince and get permission to return to England, which he finally did. There ended a unique adventure in Anglo-Russian relations.

[95] But first, on 7 November, Potemkin ordered his Zaporogians to take the island of Berezan, which offered Ochakov a last potential source of support and provisions: the Cossacks rowed there in their 'seagulls' and took the island, making their distinctive menacing cries. They captured twenty-seven cannons and two months of provisions for Ochakov - showing it was a sound decision.

[95] The town no longer exists except for one building, a former mosque that has been converted into a museum. It is a typical mark of the blind Soviet prejudice against Potemkin that the museum is dedicated to Suvorov. In fact, Suvorov was not only not in command at the storming of Ochakov, he was not even present there. Yet the museum hails him as its victor and genius and barely mentions Potemkin. Such are the absurdities of the central state planning of truth.

[96] Suvorov, according to the histories, was supposed to have complained to Catherine that jealous Potemkin was excluding him from senior commands. The truth was the opposite.

[97] Her courtiers were old too: Ivan Chernyshev left such a disgusting stench in the Empress's apartments that the floor had to be doused in lavender water every time he left.

[98] Lazhkarev, whom Westerners compared to a gypsy clown, once repelled an Islamic mob in Negroponte by leaping off a balcony with a basin of water, threatening them with the horror of instant baptism. Later, in Alexander I's entourage at Tilsit in 1807, it was he who met Napoleon and negotiated Russia's annexation of Bessarabia, ceded by the Porte in the 1808 treaty, in return for French domination of Europe, f While Potemkin later came to represent hated Russian imperialism to the Rumanians, a French visitor, forty years on, found that the Jassy boyars still regarded him as an early father of Rumanian nationalism. This made sense since Dacia roughly forms Rumania. However, the sole legacy of the name was President Ceaucescu's decision to name the national make of car the 'Dacia'.

ф The Ghika Palace still stands: it is now the Medical Faculty of Ia§i University. It has been expanded, but it still has its original Classical portico.

[99] It was Sutherland's English roast beef which Potemkin so enjoyed, when he came for dinner, that he had it wrapped up and took it home with him.

[100] Potemkin also suggested that, if the Turks would back a Russian nominee for King of Poland, Russia would consider keeping the Bug as the border. In other words, Russia would use Ottoman help to retake Poland and, in either case, Potemkin had the potential to secure a crown for himself - Poland or Dacia. Nonetheless, even for Poland, it is hard to believe Potemkin would have accepted the Bug border, which would have meant surrendering Ochakov.

[101] The surviving brother, Nikolai Raevsky, was the heroic general of 1812 who held the Raevsky Redoubt at the Battle of Borodino. Much later, he befriended Pushkin, who travelled with him, enjoying his stories of Potemkin and 1812. The Raevskys were the sons of Samoilov's sister.