Red Mutiny (30 page)

Meanwhile, on the
Rostislav,
Krieger berated his senior officer for his retreat that morning. He told his commanders he would never allow the same, regardless of their concerns about the loyalty of their crew if given the order to fire. Yes, Krieger hoped to avoid a sea battle, but every preparation, including armed boarding parties, was to be made in the event that such a fight transpired.

Then he laid out his strategy against the
Potemkin.
The squadron would travel toward Odessa in two columns, his flagship directing the first, the
Three Saints
the second. The light cruiser
Kazarsky
would run ahead of the squadron to reconnoiter, while the torpedo boats trailed behind the two columns in line-abreast formation. He reminded his officers that they outnumbered the
Potemkin
by five battleships to one; they also boasted a surfeit of torpedo boats.

"The tsar himself has ordered the elimination of this shameful blot on the honor of his fighting forces," Krieger concluded. "There must be no failure."

After the meeting ended, Captain M. N. Kolands of the
Twelve Apostles
stepped down into his steam launch. Since the squadron had left Sevastopol, his mood had darkened with every hour, a change noticed by his crew. Returning to his battleship, Kolands stared absently toward Odessa, speaking to himself in disjointed sentences: "This is the shame we've lived to see ... There's no more respect for the tsar and Russia ... They've been dishonored ... The crew aboard the
Potemkin
is worthless garbage ... There's no place for them in this world ... Not a single commander is confident in his crew besides Rear Admiral Vishnevetsky and myself."

Then he turned to the sailors in the launch. "You, brothers, must serve our emperor with faith and honesty."

Once back on the
Twelve Apostles,
Kolands hurried to his stateroom. Fifteen minutes later, he came out wearing his finest dress uniform, pinned with a line of medals. Given his promise to ram the
Potemkin,
some of his sailors had to suspect that their captain was outfitted for his funeral. Then the signal came to raise anchor.

Gathered on rooftops and the embankment overlooking the harbor, the people of Odessa stared out to sea, wondering what was to happen next. Would the squadron return? Would the
Potemkin
go out to sea after them, as it had before? Even the city's revolutionaries, who had interrupted their heated debates about the next steps they should take when the squadron was first sighted, maintained their seaward watch.

Using field binoculars, General Kakhanov also looked out to the horizon from his military headquarters, praying the squadron would soon return. After sending away the
Potemkin
delegation the previous night, he had telegrammed Vice Admiral Chukhnin and the Admiralty in St. Petersburg, desperately pleading for their battleships to hurry. Finally, at
11 P.M.
, he was comforted by a message from Vishnevetsky that the squadron was near. That morning, on the war minister's orders, Kakhanov stationed troops along the coast to arrest those who survived the attack on the
Potemkin
and attempted to come ashore.

When Vishnevetsky's squadron finally appeared on the horizon, Kakhanov had turned to one of his officers and confidently said, "What can the
Potemkin
do against such a force? Finally these mutineers will get what they deserve." But then the commander had turned around his battleships and disappeared, leaving the general at a loss. He had received no further communications from the Admiralty or Vishnevetsky, and there was still no sign of Krieger's ships.

Now Kakhanov waited like everybody else, his fate in the hands of a navy that had proved sluggish to respond to Odessa's crisis and that had fled at the first confrontation with the
Potemkin.
Still, he was optimistic the squadron would prevail.

***

When the
Potemkin
dropped anchor back in the harbor, the sailors ate some cabbage soup and bread on the forecastle. It was eighty degrees and humid, with only a slight breeze coming across the water. Eating in the open air provided some relief from the stifling heat on the decks below, and, despite the anticipation of the squadron's return, the crew was buoyant after their first showdown.

"We knew they would be back and that this time we should have to face the guns of the whole fleet," a sailor later explained. "But this didn't worry us. We were all-powerful. We had nothing to fear." The sailors sang and cracked jokes about the "courage" of the Black Sea Fleet's admirals, but this false bravado would last only as long as the lookouts scanning the horizon remained quiet.

From the
Vekha,
Dr. Golenko came aboard with a smile on his face. "Ah, how glad I am, friends, you've come back. I was afraid you had gone off without me," he said, rubbing his hands together. "I'm on your side, you know." Kovalenko upbraided him for leaving the
Potemkin
when they needed him most. Then he instructed the doctor to stay on the battleship, no matter what needed to be done on the
Vekha.

In the wardroom, each ship department reported its battle-readiness to the sailor committee. Everything was in order, although the engineers requested a few items, such as sulfuric acid, from shore. The committee sent a sailor wearing street clothes into the city to obtain these items. The Odessan revolutionary Boris, who, short of a few speeches, had proved less useful to the crew than Kirill or Feldmann, accompanied him. The committee wanted him to get detailed, scaled maps of Odessa so that they could realize their plan to take the city—if the
Potemkin
survived the afternoon.

Matyushenko reaffirmed the intention to go straight at the squadron, provoking Krieger and Vishnevetsky to fire on them, a move, he believed, that would spark the other crews to mutiny. It was a gamble. If the sailors stayed loyal to their officers, the
Potemkin
would be facing more battleships than Japanese admiral Togo had required to defeat Rozhestvensky's fleet at Tsushima. What's more, all the battleships and torpedo boats were commanded by experienced officers, some battle-tested. There would be a fight, and the
Potemkin
would likely be sunk, many of them with it. Nonetheless, the ship's leaders held to the plan.

After they disbanded, Kirill went to check on the crew to make sure they were equally committed. On a lower deck, he ran into a young medic named Morozov, who was carrying supplies to the hospital. Stopping him, Kirill asked for some medicine for his splitting headache.

"I'll fix a powder for you," Morozov said, leading him into the pharmacy with the eagerness of someone who liked to please. As he measured out medicine onto a small scale, he said, "You seem to understand what's going on, right?"

Kirill nodded.

"Please tell me what we're fighting for? I asked some others," he said innocently. "But they don't see it clearly either."

Kirill stared at the sailor for a moment, touched by his earnestness. The medic, who looked no older than sixteen, was about to risk his life, and he had no idea why. In language stripped of his usual revolutionary rhetoric, Kirill explained they were fighting against a ruler who had always taken from his people yet had never given anything in return. If the sailor wanted a better life for himself and his family, then they needed to fight.

"This is certainly worth a battle," Morozov said after he had asked a few more questions. "Now I understand."

The two shook hands and Morozov gave Kirill the packet of powder. "Please come again to speak with me," he said as Kirill walked away. "I'll fix you more powder." Years later, Kirill would remember every detail of this conversation and of the young man himself, right down to his hazel eyes, as if for the first time the Odessan revolutionary had discovered these sailors to be more than instruments useful to his cause.

At 11
A.M.
, the
Potemkin
received a message from the squadron: "Send representatives to the
Three Saints
for peace talks. We guarantee their safety. We are on our way to Odessa."

The jokes and songs ended. The squadron would soon arrive. For the next hour, sailors paced around their battle stations, waiting for the confrontation to begin. Some scribbled their addresses and gave them to friends, asking them to write to their families if they died in the upcoming battle. Others embraced in farewell or stood alone, keeping their thoughts or prayers to themselves.

At 12:05
P.M.
, a lookout spotted the squadron. The battle alarm rang, and the battle flag was hoisted, once again, over the
Potemkin.
On his way to the conning tower, Matyushenko whispered to himself, "This will decide things." Either the
Potemkin
and the squadron would meet in battle or the rest of the Black Sea Fleet would join in their mutiny. The waiting was over.

"S
EE OVER THERE?
That
is honor and glory," a
St. George
sailor said to a comrade, as they watched the
Potemkin
advancing alone against the squadron of battleships and torpedo boats and flying the flag of revoludon. "They will go down in Russian history for this day."

In the conning tower, Matyushenko stood still, his face impassive. "This will decide things," he repeated. The
Potemkin
steamed at twelve knots away from the harbor; the coastline was getting more distant with every minute while the squadron, at first just a dark smudge on the cloudless blue horizon, took shape. Matyushenko knew they were inviting death. The squadron had twenty twelve-inch guns to the
Potemkin'
s four, plus a six-to-one advantage on smaller-caliber guns. Further, Krieger could simply forward his flotilla of torpedo boats to attack. If the
Potemkin
was to have a chance against such overwhelming numbers, naval strategy dictated that they keep at a distance, trying to score hits with their twelve-inch guns. If they advanced within close range of the squadron, Krieger could devastate them with his superior arms.

Yet that was exactly the course Quartermaster M. M. Kostenko at the
Potemkin's
helm had been directed to set. In effect, the sailors were walking defenselessly toward a firing squad, hoping that those whose eyes were sighted down the guns refused to execute their orders. Otherwise, the battle would be over before the smoke cleared from the first barrage. No wonder, then, that Ensign Alekseyev, who was supposed to be leading the ship into the engagement, had come down with a sudden bout of faintness when they weighed anchor. The sailors refused his request to be sent ashore, but he was useless to them.

Seven miles distant from the squadron, the
Potemkin
received a telegraph message from the flagship
Rostislav:
"Black Sea sailors. I am appalled at your conduct. Surrender."

"Respond," Matyushenko told the telegraphist, who sent this reply: "The crew of the
Potemkin
asks the commander of the fleet to come aboard for parley. Promise security."

Krieger did not reply. At four miles out, Matyushenko looked through the telescope to get a better look at the squadron's battleships. They were arranged in two columns, with the
Rostislav
and the
Three Saints
in the lead. The flagship commanded by Krieger was a sleek, fast twin-funneled battleship that lacked the
Potemkin's
firepower. The
Three Saints,
named after the 120-gun sailing ship that participated in defeating the Turkish navy at Sinop in 1853, had once boasted the world's strongest armor, but it had been surpassed since its launch in 1893. Individually, none of the battleships equaled the
Potemkin;
but together, with the line of torpedo boats spread behind them, the squadron looked to be an imposing force.

Finally, a few minutes later, Krieger telegraphed, "You do not understand what you are doing. Surrender immediately. Only by immediate capitulation will you be spared."

"Wonderful. Now we know what the admiral wants," Matyushenko said acidly. He turned to the telegraphist again. "Respond: The squadron should drop anchor."

On the
Rostislav,
Krieger signaled the other captains to full battle alert. The
Potemkin
was refusing to back down, and he had orders to engage and sink these scoundrels if it were necessary. When Captain Guzevich sounded the alert on the
St. George,
a handful of sailors warned their officers, "We won't fire! We won't man the guns! We refuse to battle the
Potemkin
!" Besides this outcry, however, no sign of a rebellion broke out as the squadron closed on the lone battleship.

"Five thousand meters!" a sailor reported to the
Potemkin'
s conning tower. At this range, Matyushenko could now see that the squadron was prepared for battle, its decks cleared and its guns trained on the
Potemkin.
The crews remained loyal, which might mean his revolutionary comrades had been arrested or had abandoned the cause. If this were not the case, they needed to act soon—very soon—or the
Potemkin
was doomed.

"Three thousand meters!"

Matyushenko expected the squadron to fire at any moment. The
Potemkin
's gunners nervously awaited the same, prepared to answer with their own salvos. To keep in check their strong instinct for self-preservation, they had to repeat to one another and to themselves that their orders were not to fire first. Down in the engine room, unaware of developments above, Kovalenko watched over the stokers and machinists, making sure they kept to their duties as expectations of a battle mounted.

"Two thousand meters."

Matyushenko directed Kostenko to maintain the
Potemkin
's course, which would take it directly between the two columns of battleships. The forward twelve-inch turret was turned starboard at the
Three Saints;
the aft turret was directed to port at the
Rostislav.
The other seventy-four guns on the
Potemkin
were also loaded and ready, their crews adjusting their aim as the battleship cut quickly through the water. The tension aboard the battleship was too much for one sailor charged with watering down the upper deck in case of fire—"Guns to the left! Guns to the right!" he screamed with mad glee, spraying his hose from side to side before some sailors wrestled him down.