Red Mutiny (39 page)

Out in the darkness of the Black Sea, hundreds of miles from the Romanian coast, the destroyer
Stremitelny
sped across the water at eighteen knots. Lieutenant Yanovich had directed the destroyer toward Odessa, hoping to pick up the
Potemkin'
s trail from its last known location. With his sharp features and narrow head, the young officer on the foredeck had the look of a hatchet, an impression reinforced by his fanatical personality.

The day before, he had received approval for his plan to hunt down the mutinous battleship, and he had wasted no time in relieving Captain Second Class Konstantinov from his command of the destroyer. An hour later, the twenty officers, mostly lieutenants and ensigns Yanovich had recruited for the mission, came aboard, along with thirteen sailors (primarily stokers and machinists to operate the engines). Under typical circumstances, four officers would have overseen fifty-two sailors on the destroyer. But this was far from a typical voyage. To maintain secrecy, the
Stremitelny
steamed out of Sevastopol without the customary signaling to the flagship. Since then, the destroyer had stopped only once to take on a few more crew members from a torpedo boat.

At 2
A.M.
on June 20, Yanovich observed the lights of a ship through his binoculars. The destroyer slowly approached, battle ready, but discovered only the training ship
Prut
heading back toward Sevastopol. Yanovich directed his searchlights across the
Prut's
bridge and saw an officer, presumably the one on duty.

"Have you seen the
Potemkin?"
" he signaled by semaphore, ignorant of the
Prut
mutiny and the fact that the officer on its bridge was following the orders of the mutineers. If he had, Yanovich would have no doubt already sent a pair of torpedoes into its waterline.

"No," the
Prut
answered. "Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine," Yanovich returned, fooled by the officer's presence. He then resumed course to Odessa. An hour later, the
Prut
was less fortunate; the torpedo boat
Zhutky
came across the training ship, this time with a captain informed of the mutiny. He took the
Prut
under guard and led it to Nikolayev, depriving Yanovich of his first capture.

At first light outside Odessa, the
Stremitelny
came across the British steamer
Cranby,
which had been charged by the British consulate to remove English expatriates from the city after the recent violence. Yanovich ordered the steamer to return to the port so he could see if any revolutionary refugees were hidden on board. When the
Cranby'
s captain hesitated, Yanovich ordered his gunners to fire a shot across the steamer's bow, showing his willingness to attack if resisted (as well as his disdain for niceties of international relations). The
Cranby
wisely turned toward the harbor, with the
Stremitelny's
guns trained on it. Nobody suspicious was found aboard.

In Odessa, Yanovich soon learned from Captain Boisman, who had been sent there by Chukhnin to arrange for the mutineers' punishment, that the
Potemkin
had gone to Constanza. News of its arrival in a foreign port had spread around the Black Sea as quickly as the telegraph wires could carry it.

While Yanovich prepared to leave Odessa for the next stage of the chase, his second officer informed him that the valves on the torpedoes had been bent, an obvious act of sabotage. Enraged at this discovery, Yanovich discharged torpedo quartermaster I. Babenko and several other sailors, even though he had no proof of their involvement. Despite having officers stationed throughout the ship, outnumbering the few sailors by two to one, the crew
still
could not be trusted. While repairs were carried out, the
Stremitelny
was obliged to anchor in Odessa. Yanovich prodded his engineers to hurry. He planned to reach Constanza and engage the
Potemkin
within half a day.

In the throne room of the Grand Palace at Peterhof, Count V. F. Dorrer and six other nobles from the Kursk province were led across the intricately patterned parquet floor to an audience with Nicholas II. The hall, with a high, lily-white ceiling decorated with stucco reliefs of garlands and roses and a row of gold and crystal chandeliers, bespoke the tsar's power, an autocracy to which these nobles now came to pledge their devotion. Along with other monarchists who had created the Union of Russian Men to oppose the liberal nobles who sought a constitutional government, Dorrer recognized that many problems afflicted the empire. But he believed strongly that placing any limits on the autocracy guaranteed Russia's ruin. Instead, as the count politely advised Nicholas that morning, he felt that an election of landed nobles (of which he was one) to form a consultative assembly would help restore the connection between the tsar and his people.

Sitting in a gilded oak throne raised on a small dais, Nicholas was touched by the delegation's sentiments of loyalty. But he likely paid little attention to their words: as tsar, his role was to remain above partisan bickering and self-interest. He alone should decide what Russia needed, uninfluenced by others, no matter how fervently they might make their case. Anyway, his thoughts were elsewhere; he was too distracted by the mutiny on the Black Sea.

The
Potemkin
's arrival in Constanza the night before had heightened his distress. Having failed to control the situation while they had the chance, his admirals deserved to be punished alongside the sailors. On the telegram informing Nicholas of the situation aboard
Prut,
he handwrote, "Krieger must be sternly reprimanded in my name for the intolerable discipline within his division."

For nearly a week, Nicholas's representatives had downplayed the
Potemkin
uprising to foreign governments, calling it an insignificant aberration incited by the crew's wanton drunkenness. These spokesmen promised that the mutiny would be easily suppressed. Yet almost a week later, the battleship was still on the loose, and other ships had rebelled as well. With the
Potemkin
imperiling Romania, Turkey reinforcing its batteries on the Bosphorus Strait, and Britain contemplating abrogating the Treaty of Paris in order to send warships to the Black Sea to end the threat, Nicholas knew he looked weak. Talk that the army might join the mutiny, unrealistic though he believed it to be, only debilitated him further.

Privately, his closest advisers mirrored the same concern. The Russian ambassador in London, Count Aleksandr Beckendorf, wrote the following to his foreign minister, Vladimir Lambsdorf:

The
Potemkin
uprising has delivered a significant moral strike against the prestige of the autocracy. About recent sad events in Russia, I have to point out that none of them, even our military failures, have made more distressing an impression on public opinion, and I believe, on the British government, than events in Odessa and the uprising on the
Potemkin.
For the first time, I clearly see that a question has arisen seriously here, whether the revolution that broke out in Russia threatens the stability of the government's existence.

With the Japanese poised to invade Russian territory for the first time in the war, at Sakhalin Island, and with the fragility of his rule at home revealed by the mutiny, Nicholas reconsidered pursuing peace. His war minister, Sakharov, responding by letter to the tsar's recent request for opinions from his inner circle on whether to proceed with the war, advised, "Under the present conditions to conclude peace is impossible, because one cannot admit that Russia should confess herself beaten by Japan." His other generals agreed. Yet the minister of finance, Vladimir Kokovtsov, braved a contrary view: "I feel compelled to admit the continuation of the campaign—things being in the condition they are in the war theater and more particularly in the interior of the country—appears extremely difficult, and conclusion of peace is, from the financial point of view, extremely desirable."

Nicholas was finally leaning toward this view as well. On June 19, he had informed the American ambassador, Meyer, that his plenipotentiaries, led by Muravyev, would be invested with full powers to negotiate peace, and that he had also decided to dismiss Sakharov. Nonetheless, Nicholas had yet to settle the issue definitively. Privately he still considered backing away from the talks altogether; but if the Black Sea mutiny dragged on and the Japanese took Sakhalin, he might have no choice but to end the war.

Oppressed by these troubles, Nicholas could be excused for the spare attention he paid to Dorrer and the other Kursk nobles. As with most audiences, he had received his guests as a courtesy, merely to alleviate their concerns. Before the meeting ended, Nicholas indicated that he agreed with their proposal, though he did so in vague terms and absent any commitments. He then concluded, "A state is only powerful and sound that keeps sacred the precepts of the past. We ourselves have sinned against this and God may be punishing us for that.... I am convinced that you all, and each in his sphere, will help
me
restore peace and quiet in our land and thereby will render
me
the service that I expect from all
my
loyal subjects."

Nicholas's apparent calm in the midst of the storm was typical of him. In public he rarely showed his emotions or revealed the true nature of his thinking. But in his diary entry later that day, he expressed how troubled he was. "The devil only knows what is happening in the Black Sea Fleet. Three days ago, the crew of the
St. George
joined the
Potemkin
but soon came to its senses and asked the commander and officers to come back, and, after confessing, surrendered fifty-seven mutineers. The
Potemkin
appeared at Constanza in Romania. Aboard the
Prut
there was some unrest that stopped upon arrival in Sevastopol. If only the rest of the crews of the squadron would stay loyal!"

The longer the
Potemkin
sailors endured, the deeper Nicholas would feel this despair.

At 7:30
A.M.
on June 20 in Constanza, the winds and restless seas forced the
Ismail
to take refuge in the harbor. As the torpedo boat entered the calmer waters, the Romanian cruiser fired two shots, one a blank, the other with explosive charge, ahead of the
Ismail,
to warn it off. It turned back and anchored next to the
Potemkin
again, a grim omen for the sailors waiting for Bucharest's answer.

Two hours later, Matyushenko and four committee members boarded a launch to receive their promised answer. Captain Negru had visited the battleship at dawn, once again trying to convince the crew to leave the
Potemkin,
even though he had yet to hear from his superiors. The sailors refused, holding out for the possibility that King Carol would allow them to resupply their battleship.

In the port, Matyushenko stepped onto the quay, where Negru was waiting with a translator by his side. "I've received instructions from Bucharest. Very favorable ones for you—if you surrender," Negru said. Then he explained that he could not, however, by his foreign minister's order, allow them to buy any coal or provisions.

Matyushenko demanded to see the original telegram, too astonished to believe the rejection. They had followed every protocol. They had not shown any belligerence toward the Romanians. They had rubles to pay for the goods. And still they were denied.

Negru handed over the document and then read for Matyushenko the surrender terms the port commander was instructed to offer: "Try to persuade the Russian sailors our government will recognize them as foreign deserters and consequently they will be allowed to go free if they leave the ship. As soon as they accept these conditions, they will have permission to go to Bulgaria or any destination by passenger steamship. After this, I ask you to post a military guard on the
Potemkin
and to assist the sailors to buy provisions for themselves."

Matyushenko coldly asked the translator to write out the telegram in Russian. Then he told Negru that he would return with an answer once he had presented the proposal to the crew. Before Matyushenko's delegation left, Negru pressed the sailors to quit the battleship, arguing that it was their sole chance at survival. Matyushenko walked away.

On the
Potemkin,
Koshuba interrupted Matyushenko halfway into his reading of the telegram. "Are we really being asked to accept this?"

"We need bread and meat," a sailor yelled, unseen among the crew.

Matyushenko silenced the men and finished the proposal. Few believed the Romanians would honor their terms. "This is a fraud. They'll seize us and turn us over to the tsar," a crew member predicted, to a rousing chorus of agreement.

"So, you don't want to surrender, do you?" Matyushenko asked.

"To Russia!" the crew cried out. "To Russia!"

As these shouts died down, the ship's leaders left for the wardroom to plan where to take the
Potemkin
next. They would not seize provisions by force in a foreign land whose safety they had guaranteed in their proclamations. Nonetheless, they were desperate for coal, fresh water, and food. They urgently needed to find a place that had these supplies in ample amounts. A sailor brought in a Black Sea chart and spread it across the table. At first, Kirill suggested they return to Odessa, given its many coal barges, but Feldmann countered that Kakhanov would now have the city completely defended.

"How about Pod?" Kirill then offered. "We could seize a Turkish coal ship en route to Constantinople."

Again he was rebutted. The sailors would not resort to piracy. Then Denisenko proposed Batumi in southwest Georgia, where revolutionaries, including a young Iosif Dzhugashvili (later known as Josef Stalin), had launched several uprisings in the past few months, but this idea was dismissed because the city's fortress was armed with enough artillery to destroy the
Potemkin.

Then Feldmann drew his finger across the map, stopping on Theodosia, a port on the Crimean coast. Theodosia was a railroad hub, unprotected by a fortress and close to the Caucasus, where they might want to go afterward to spread revolution. This, he believed, was where they stood the best chance of obtaining supplies so they could continue their revolt. Further, its proximity to Sevastopol improved their chances of getting information about the squadron's movement. The sailors began to favor this suggestion when Ensign Alekseyev broke into the conversation.