Catherine the Great & Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair

Major-General Potemkin and his cavalry was now in action virtually every day: he distinguished himself again on 30 June and repulsed Turkish attacks on 2 and 6 July. When Golitsyn finally recrossed the Dniester, Potemkin served at the taking of Khotin. He fought heroically with his cavalry on 14 August at the Battle of Prashkovsky and then helped defeat the Moldavanzi-Pasha on the 29th. ‘I am immediately recommending the courage and skill shown in battle by Major-General Potemkin,’ wrote Golitsyn, ‘because until that time our cavalry has never acted with such discipline and courage as it did under the command of the Major-General.’¹³ Potemkin was becoming a war hero.

This praise must have been welcome to Catherine back in the capital. It was far from welcome at the Sublime Porte, where Sultan Mustafa III recalled his Grand Vizier: Emin-Pasha may have lost his mind at the front but, in Ottoman tradition, he lost his head as soon as he got home. These victories were too late for Golitsyn, however, who was consoled with a field-marshal’s baton. The Foreign Minister’s brother, General Peter Ivanovich Panin, assumed command of the Bender army, so that, in September, the First Army was taken over by Peter Rumiantsev. Thus began the command of one of the most glorious generals in the history of Russia, who became Potemkin’s patron – and then his rival.

—

The new commander could not have been more different from the twenty-nine-year-old Major-General on his staff. Yet Potemkin respected him immensely. Aged forty-three, Rumiantsev was a tall, thin, fastidious soldier with a biting dry wit – and he was Countess Bruce’s brother. Like his hero Frederick the Great, he ‘loved and respected no one in the world’, but was ‘the most brilliant of all Russian generals, endowed with outstanding gifts’.¹⁴ Again like his hero, Rumiantsev was a severe disciplinarian yet a wonderful conversationalist. ‘I’ve passed days with him tête-à-tête,’ enthused Langeron, ‘and never felt a moment’s boredom.’¹⁵ He amassed a fortune and lived in ‘ancient feudal magnificence’, always displaying the most refined manners of a seigneur. This is unsurprising since he was a living specimen of Petrine history: he was probably Peter the Great’s natural son.^*1

The general had learned his craft fighting Prussia in the Seven Years War, during which even Frederick admired his skill. Catherine appreciated his talent but never quite trusted him and appointed him President of the Little Russian College, a position worthy of his status, but safely distant from Court. He remained unimpressed by Catherine, liked the Russian army’s Prussianized uniforms and wigs, believed in Prussian military discipline – and worked to improve on the Prussian tactics of the Seven Years War. He tended to prefer Germans to Russians.¹⁶

Rumiantsev was a father to his soldiers but a general to his sons. When one visited him after finishing his studies, he asked, ‘Who are you?’, ‘Your son, replied the boy. ‘Yes, how pleasant. You have grown,’ snapped the general. The son asked if he could find a position there and if he could stay. ‘Certainly,’ said his father, ‘you must surely know some officer or other in the camp who can help you out.’¹⁷

Potemkin was always keen to have things both ways – access to the commander and the chance to find glory in the field; chamberlain at Court, general at the front. He wrote to Rumiantsev about ‘the two things on which my service is founded…devotion to my Sovereign and desire for approval from my highly respected commander’.¹⁸ Rumiantsev appreciated his intelligence but also must have known of his acquaintance with the Empress. His demands were granted. As the war entered its second year, Catherine was frustrated by the slowness of Russian success. War in the eighteenth century was seasonal: in the Russian winter, armies hibernated like hedgehogs. Battle with the main Ottoman armies – and the fall of Bender – had to wait for the spring.

—

As soon as it was possible, Rumiantsev reassembled his army in several manoeuvrable corps and advanced down the Dniester. Even in freezing January, Potemkin, now sent by Rumiantsev to serve with the corps of General Schtofel’n, was involved in skirmishes, driving off the attacks of Abdul-Pasha. On 4 February, Potemkin helped capture Jurja in a series of daring cavalry raids, defeating 12,000 enemy troops, capturing two cannons and a handful of banners. It was still bitterly cold but he ‘did not spare himself’.¹⁹ At the end of the month, when Rumiantsev’s report was read out at the Council before the Empress, he mentioned ‘the fervent feats of Major-General Potemkin’, who ‘asked me to send him to the corps of Lieutenant-General von Schtofel’n where, as soon as was possible, he distinguished himself both by his courage and by martial skill.’²⁰ The commander recommended Potemkin should be decorated and he received his first medal, the Order of St Anna.