Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (95 page)

After twenty-four hours at Kaidek, Catherine and Joseph left to the courtiers and diplomats the pleasure of shooting the rapids by galley, and traveled together by carriage to the site where Potemkin intended to build the new city of Ekaterinoslav. There, with Joseph at her side, Catherine laid the foundation stone of the city’s new cathedral. The emperor, dubious about building a large church before there was a town or a population, wrote to a friend in Vienna, “
I performed a great deed today. The empress laid the first stone of a new church, and I laid—the last.”

Once the galleys had passed safely through the rapids and the two sovereigns reembarked, they made their entry into Kherson by water. Nine years before, when Potemkin had first chosen this site twenty miles up the estuary from the Black Sea, Kherson had been no more than a few huts in a marsh. Now it was a fortified city with two thousand white houses, straight streets, shade trees, flower gardens, churches and public buildings, barracks for twenty thousand men, crowds in the streets, shops filled with goods, and a thriving shipyard with warehouses along the quays and two completed ships of the line and a frigate ready to be launched. More than a hundred ships, many of them Russian, were riding at anchor in the port. On May 15, Catherine and Joseph launched the three warships, including the ship of the line
Vladimir
and a powerful eighty-gun ship of the line diplomatically named
St. Joseph
.

The proximity of the Turks loomed in the minds of both sovereigns. They saw the arch Potemkin had erected over the entrance to the town, provocatively emblazoned with the inscription in Greek “This is
the way to Byzantium.” They met Yakov Bulgakov, the Russian minister in Constantinople, who had come to report to the empress and remind her of what she and Potemkin already knew: that the Ottoman Empire had never fully accepted the annexation of the Crimea or, indeed, any Russian presence on the Black Sea. The Turks were only biding their time, Bulgakov warned. Catherine and Potemkin understood, and because Russia would not be ready for war for at least two years, they urged Bulgakov to be conciliatory.

Catherine herself was now obliged to be cautious. Originally, she had hoped to travel the full length of the Dnieper, which meant going from Kherson down the estuary all the way to the Black Sea. The Turks forestalled this final stage of her river voyage by sending four men-of-war and ten frigates to cruise in the estuary. It was a reminder that the Dnieper was not yet fully open.

Despite this disappointment, Catherine was determined to impress her imperial ally and the foreign ambassadors by taking them on a tour of the Crimea. Leaving Kherson and the Dnieper on May 21, they traveled overland by carriage. Once out on the steppe, Joseph was astonished when twelve hundred Tartar horsemen suddenly appeared in a cloud of dust; here were tribesmen, only recently conquered, now considered to be sufficiently loyal to serve as an imperial guard of honor. Impressed by what he was seeing, Joseph left the encampment at dusk one evening and walked with Ségur out into the flat wasteland of grass stretching to the horizon. “
What a peculiar land,” the emperor said. “And who could have expected to see me with Catherine the Second, and the French and English ambassadors wandering through a Tatar desert? What a page of history!”

Passing through the Perekop Isthmus connecting the Crimean Peninsula with Ukraine and Russia to the north, the procession of carriages rolled down the steep, rocky road leading to Bakhchisarai, the former capital of the Crimean khans. Here, the private apartments in the palace of the khans became the temporary residence of the two visiting monarchs. Months before, Catherine had sent Charles Cameron, her Scottish architect, to repair and decorate the palace. Cameron had preserved the atmosphere of Islam. There were inner courts and secret gardens enclosed by high walls and hedges of myrtle. There were cool, uncluttered rooms with tiled walls in glowing colors, thick carpets,
elaborate tapestries, and, in the center of every room, a marble fountain. Through her open windows, Catherine could see minarets rising above the walls and breathe the scents of roses, jasmine, orange trees, and pomegranates. Surrounding the palace was the town, dominated by nineteen mosques and their high minarets, from which, five times a day, voices summoned the faithful to prayer; while she was there, Catherine ordered the construction of two new mosques. Outside, too, were other sights, sounds, and smells of Islam: teeming street bazaars; Tatar princes and men in flowing robes; their wives and other women, covered except for their eyes.

Because Potemkin was eager to show Catherine and the emperor what he considered his greatest achievement in the south, they spent only three days and two nights in Bakhchisarai. On May 22, they drove across the mountains through forests of cypress and pine to the rugged headlands of the Crimea’s Black Sea south coast. Here they entered a lush, Riviera-like region of mild temperatures the year around, with olive trees, orchards, vineyards, pastures, and gardens of jasmine, laurel, lilacs, wisteria, roses, and violets. Every spring, the sudden, massive flowering of fruit trees, shrubs, vines, and wildflowers, with their swirl of colors and odors, transformed the coast into a vast perfumed garden.

Their destination was Inkerman, on the heights overlooking the Black Sea, where they dined in a new pavilion. After a midday banquet, Potemkin stood and drew back the curtains at one end of the room. Before them, under the cloudless blue Crimean sky, the travelers saw an amphitheater of rugged mountain peaks rising from emerald blue waters. This was the great bay of Sebastopol, glittering in the sunlight. In the bay lay the ships of Potemkin’s growing Black Sea Fleet. On a signal from the pavilion, the ships thundered a salute to the two monarchs. To conclude, one of the new ships raised the emperor’s flag and fired a salute specifically for him.

Catherine led Joseph to a carriage and together they drove down to the port to tour the harbor and the city. They saw its new dockyards and wharves, its fortifications, admiralty buildings, magazines, barracks, churches, two hospitals, shops, houses, and schools. Joseph, who had been skeptical and critical of Kherson, was astonished by Sebastopol; it was, he declared, “
the most beautiful port I have ever seen.” Impressed by the quality and readiness of the Russian ships, the emperor added, “The truth is that it is necessary to be here to believe what I see.”

From Sebastopol, Catherine had intended to escort her visitors
through the Crimea as far as Taganrog on the Sea of Azov. But summer heat and Joseph’s desire to return to Vienna convinced her that everyone had seen enough. They returned to the Dnieper, riding together in her carriage, still talking politics and future plans. On June 2, they parted. Catherine continued north to Poltava, where Potemkin staged a re-creation of the 1709 Battle of Poltava, at which Peter the Great had annihilated Charles XII’s invading Swedish army. She watched as fifty thousand Russian soldiers, some costumed as Russians, some as Swedes, reenacted the battle.

On June 10 at Kharkov, Catherine and Potemkin parted. Before leaving, he presented her with a magnificent necklace of pearls, purchased and brought to him from Vienna. She bestowed on him the title of prince of Tauris. Afterward, traveling north through Kursk, Orel, and Tula, Catherine’s carriage bumped along roads no longer offering the smooth glide of a sledge on snow. When she reached Moscow on June 27, she was overjoyed to see her grandsons, Alexander and Constantine, whose parents had permitted them to travel to welcome their grandmother. This was Catherine’s last visit to the old capital, and when she reached Tsarskoe Selo on July 11, she was exhausted.

She was immensly proud of Potemkin’s achievements. After leaving him at Kharkov, she had written him grateful, emotional letters during her journey: “
I love you and your service which comes from pure zeal.… Please be careful.… With the intense heat you have at midday, I beg of you most humbly: do me the favor of looking after your health, for God’s and our sake, and be as pleased with me as I am with you.”

Potemkin replied with gratitude and a devotion that was almost filial:

Regarding the “malice and envy” of his enemies, she wrote back: “
Between you and me, my friend, I will tell you the state of affairs in a few words: you serve me and I am grateful. And that’s all there is to it. With your zeal toward me and your fervor for the affairs of the empire, you rapped your enemies across the knuckles.”

Potemkin had built new cities and seaports, created new industries and a fleet, imported and planted new agriculture, and given Russia access to a new sea. One interested party did not believe that these cities and towns, or the shipyards and warships that Potemkin had shown to Catherine, were made of cardboard. The Turks were keenly aware of the strength of the new empire spreading along the north shore of the Black Sea. They did not wait to react. Catherine had returned to Tsarskoe Selo to rest, but she was to have little rest. Immediately following her return from the south came the news that Turkey had declared war.

68
The Second Turkish War and the Death of Potemkin

T
HE PEACE BETWEEN
Russia and Turkey signed in 1774 was precarious. The Turks had never been reconciled to loss of territory in the south and the opening of the Black Sea to Russian merchant vessels. Once Potemkin began building a Black Sea Fleet, Turkish concern mounted. Then Catherine annexed the Crimea. She had made her triumphant personal tour of the south, accompanied by the Austrian emperor, culminating in her inspection of the new naval base at Sebastopol, filled with warships only a two-day sail from Constantinople. This seemed a deliberate provocation. The sultan declared war.

This sudden move caught Russia by surprise. Catherine and Potemkin were both aware of Turkey’s permanent hostility, but both had expected her triumphant journey to the south to intimidate the Turks, not provoke them; certainly, they had not thought it would precipitate an immediate war. For the Turks, however, there was a price to pay for the advantage of striking first: the Turkish declaration of war triggered
Russia’s secret treaty with Austria, obliging Joseph II to come to Catherine’s aid. Two weeks after the Turkish declaration, the emperor told Catherine that he would honor their treaty, and in February 1788, Austria declared war on the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey’s objectives in the new war were simple: to regain the Crimea and eliminate the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Catherine’s objectives were more layered. Her ultimate purpose was still to drive the Turks from Europe and seize Constantinople, but her immediate effort was directed at the mighty fortress of Ochakov, which controlled the estuary of the Dnieper River. Once this strategic strong point, garrisoned by twenty thousand men, had fallen, Catherine and Potemkin intended their armies to advance westward along the north shore of the Black Sea and occupy the land between the Bug and the Dniester rivers. At that point, they would weigh the prospects for a march on Constantinople.

It was clear that Potemkin would be in supreme command of the Russian war effort. All the necessary reins of power were in his hands. He had been viceroy and commander in chief of the armed forces in the southern provinces for a decade. He had created the cities and the fleet. Moreover, he was president of the War College and was familiar with the military resources available, the disposition of forces, and the administrative and political details involved. He became commander in chief by merit, and even the most senior Russian general, Peter Rumyantsev, agreed to serve under him. Suvorov, the most successful Russian battlefield commander of the age, already was under Potemkin’s command.