Catherine the Great & Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair

Sir James Harris, who thought an Austrian alliance would help his own mission, still could not understand Russia’s reluctance to ally with Britain, even after Potemkin’s return from Mogilev. The Prince cheerfully blamed Catherine’s refusal on a raft of flimsy excuses, including the ‘imbecility of the tale-bearing favourite’ Lanskoy, her weakness induced by her ‘passions’ and the ‘adroit flattery’ of the Habsburg Emperor, who made her think she was the ‘greatest Princess in Europe’. This diatribe displayed Potemkin’s genuine frustration with the effort of managing Catherine, but it also rings of Potemkinian mischief. This is a clear example of Potemkin ‘playing’ poor Harris, because the couple’s secret letters prove they were both pinning their entire political system on an alliance with Austria.²¹ Harris at last realized the mistake of backing Potemkin against Panin, because the former was now uninterested, if friendly, while the latter was openly hostile.

Harris requested recall in the face of Panin’s hostility. But London was still pressing him to find a way to win the Russian alliance. So in nocturnal conversations with Potemkin the ever resourceful Harris conceived an ambitious scheme. Potemkin’s imagination was the source of what became official British policy. Britain, suggested the Prince, should offer Russia ‘some object worthy of her ambition’ to join the war. In cypher, Harris explained to his Secretary of State, Viscount Stormont, in November 1780: ‘Prince Potemkin, though he did not directly say so, yet clearly gave me to understand that the only cession, which would induce the Empress to become our Ally, was that of Minorca.’ This was not as far-fetched as it might sound because, in 1780, Potemkin was building his Black Sea Fleet and promoting trade through the Straits and out to Mediterranean ports such as Marseilles. Port Mahon in Minorca might be a useful base for the fleet. Russia had occupied Greek islands during the last war – but not kept any at the peace; Potemkin regularly offered Crete to France and England in his Ottoman partition plans; and Emperor Paul later occupied Malta. Besides he was careful, as Harris emphasized, never to suggest it directly. This was one of those fantastical empire-building games that Potemkin loved to play – at no cost to himself.

Potemkin was excited about the idea of a Russian naval base on Minorca, especially since Britain would leave large stores of supplies, worth £2,000,000, which would be at Russia’s or Potemkin’s disposal. He met Harris daily to discuss it and arranged the envoy’s second tête-à-tête with Catherine on 19 December 1780. Before Harris was summoned, the Prince went down to see the Empress for two hours, returning with a ‘countenance full of satisfaction and joy’. This was the climax of Harris’s friendship with Serenissimus. ‘We were sitting alone together very late in the evening when he broke out of a sudden into all the advantages that would arise to Russia…’. We can hear Potemkin’s child-like delight, chimerical dreams and febrile exhilaration, as he lazed on a divan in his rooms, strewn with bottles of Tokay and champagne, cards on green-baize tables: ‘He then with the liveliness of his imagination ran on the idea of a Russian fleet stationed at Mahon, of peopling the island with Greeks, that such an acquisition would be a column of the Empress’s glory in the middle of the sea.’²²

The Empress saw the benefits of Minorca, but she told Potemkin, ‘the bride is too beautiful, they are trying to trick me’. It seemed that she could not resist Potemkin’s excitement when they were together but would often think better of it when he had gone. Russia, with an unbuilt fleet, could hold it only at Britain’s pleasure. She turned down Minorca. She was right: it was too far away and Britain itself soon lost the island.

Potemkin grumbled that Catherine was ‘suspicious, timid and narrow-minded, but again this was half play acting. Harris still could not resist hoping that the Prince was committed to England: ‘Dined on Wednesday at Tsarskoe Selo with Prince Potemkin…he talked upon the interests of our two Courts in such a friendly and judicious manner that I regret more than ever his frequent lapses into idleness and dissipation.’ He still had not registered that Potemkin’s strategic emphasis was not western at all but southerly. Nonetheless, as the Prince secretly negotiated with the Austrians, Sir James kept trying.

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