13

AN ORTHODOX PRIEST led the funeral procession slowly down Preobrazhenskaya Street at 4 P.M. on the afternoon of June 16. Matyushenko and eleven other Potemkin sailors followed behind the horse-drawn carriage bearing Vakulenchuk in his wooden coffin. Thousands of Odessans lined the street and stood on their balconies overhead. Many held candles. Some tossed flowers as the carriage passed on its way to Uspensky Cathedral. It was so quiet that one could hear little else than the clop-clop of horse hooves on the cobblestones. Save the escort of two mounted Cossacks, General Kakhanov's forces held back in the side streets.

Matyushenko looked at the tear-strewn faces in the crowd to his left and to his right. These people had already suffered so much, but here they were now, risking their lives again to pay their respects to a man they had never known. The funeral was helping align the Odessans with the sailors, so they could act as one. Given the sailors' plan to bombard the military meeting that night, they would soon need the citizens' help to take over the city. But still, for Matyushenko, this funeral was about more than its contribution to the struggle. He did not need to serve in the honor guard—it put him within grasp of the soldiers if Kakhanov betrayed them and kept him away from the battleship, where the crew was dangerously unsettled. But he did so anyway.

Matyushenko had come to honor his friend, who had thought only of helping free his enslaved fellow sailors. For his efforts, he had died before ever seeing the revolutionary flag fly over the Potemkin. Still, he was not forgotten, and the sight of so many people in the streets, risking their own blood to honor his friend, struck Matyushenko deeply. Vakulenchuk had been born one of the many millions of nameless peasants who lived out their days under the yoke of oppression. But now, Matyushenko thought, his friend was being celebrated in a way that a king or tsar could only hope to match.

After the simple funeral service at Uspensky Cathedral, the procession moved toward the cemetery. As they approached Chumka Hill, a company of soldiers cut off the thousands of Odessans following the carriage. When the crowd pushed against their line, a soldier shot his rifle into the air. Matyushenko approached the company's sergeant to complain.

"Keep moving, or we will open fire!" the sergeant screamed.

Matyushenko turned away though he was tempted to strike the officer; for once he held back his temper, which could surge with such speed and ferocity that he easily became a prisoner to it. Instead he continued to the cemetery. Several minutes later, hundreds of Odessans circumvented the blockade and emptied out of side streets behind them once again. Outmaneuvering the soldiers had charged up the crowd, and the procession took on a celebratory mood. People called out, "Long live freedom! Long live equality! Long live solidarity!" On Chumka Hill, many more had gathered in advance to attend the burial. A few held banners proclaiming, DOWN WITH AUTOCRACY! As they filed into the cemetery, the crowd voiced their solidarity with the sailors.

"We'll never forget this," Matyushenko told a worker.

Before the ceremony took place, a Cossack officer dismounted and walked up to Matyushenko, saying that the sailor and his men would have to leave immediately; their presence was stirring up the crowd too much. Unarmed and unwilling to cause trouble for the Odessans, Matyushenko agreed to leave. He and the other sailors climbed into some carriages waiting outside the cemetery, and they left before Vakulenchuk was lowered into the ground. Halfway back to the port, on Preobrazhenskaya Street, a company of soldiers blocked their path. "You'll have to walk," the officer in charge commanded. Matyushenko suspected nothing, as they had been allowed to hold the funeral peacefully. The sailors stepped out of the carriages.

But as they walked forward, a second company of soldiers appeared down a side street, rifles drawn, blocking their escape to the right. The moment Matyushenko realized they had stepped into an ambush, a trumpet blasted. It was the signal to fire. The twelve sailors spun around, looking for cover and finding none. The line of rifles cracked. The first barrage missed Matyushenko. He sprinted down the block with several others at his side.

Another round of fire thundered.

Matyushenko scrambled around the corner, narrowly escaping the first volleys. He did not have a chance to see who had survived along with him as he heard footsteps beat behind him—the soldiers gave chase. The Potemkin sailors dashed down several side streets, one after the other, getting lost. Nonetheless, they kept running, not sure where to go but with instinct telling them to rush until their lungs burned and legs deadened. At every corner they stopped and peered around the building's edge, expecting to face a line of rifles. Finding none, they kept running. Finally, they managed to shake loose their pursuers. When Matyushenko slowed his pace, he realized that three of his shipmates were missing—killed or arrested in the ambush. He would never know.

Matyushenko led the surviving sailors to the port and commandeered a fishing boat to return them to the Potemkin. On their way out, he discovered a bullet hole in his pant leg, proving how narrow and lucky his escape had been. He was certain, however, that they all would have died, had several soldiers not purposely aimed astray—the other sailors agreed that they had seen this.

When Matyushenko stepped back onto the battleship, he had one thought: they must bombard Odessa now. They would have their revenge on Kakhanov, and the battle to take the city would finally begin. It was time.

When an officer reported that all but three of the sailors had escaped the ambush, Kakhanov set off to meet with his commanders at the city theater to decide on further steps to pacify the workers and defend themselves against the Potemkin. With thousands of troops pouring into the city from the surrounding region, Odessa was in a state of lockdown. A curfew had been set for dusk; the streets were under heavy patrol; and the approaches to the city and its major government buildings and foreign consuls were all under guard. Except for a few confrontations in the city's outskirts, everything was calm. But now matters had changed.

When Kakhanov had authorized the ambush, a plan he had developed after the sailors petitioned him about the funeral, he was working with little information and few options. He had expected the squadron's arrival before the funeral procession even began. A morning telegram from the Admiralty had informed him that Vishnevetsky would near Odessa by 3 P.M., but that was the last he had heard from either St. Petersburg or Sevastopol. Therefore, arresting the sailors who came ashore to bury Vakulenchuk, particularly if this group contained some of the battleship's mutinous leaders, made strategic sense, as it would decapitate the Potemkin's leadership before the naval confrontation. But as the day passed, with the squadron yet to appear, Kakhanov had to decide what to do himself.

Although in a desperate position, at least he had known more about the sailors' plans than he had the night before. After leaving the ship, the Potemkin's deposed officers had informed him that the crew was already committed to bombing the city and arming the workers. If so, then ambushing the sailors was not going to put the city in more peril than it already was threatened with. Kakhanov could not simply let mutinous sailors come and go as they pleased within his city. Perhaps he would capture one of their leaders—perhaps even this Matyushenko himself; the officers had said that he controlled the crew. By making a move on the sailors after the funeral, Kakhanov would avoid inciting another riot.

But now the ambush had failed and Vice Admiral Chukhnin's squadron was still nowhere in sight. Now, Kakhanov despaired, the Potemkin would begin its bombardment long before the squadron appeared.

At 5:20 P.M., the battleship Three Saints, commanded by Rear Admiral Vishnevetsky, dropped anchor off Tendra Island. The rest of his squadron—the battleships St. George and Twelve Apostles, the light cruiser Kazarsky, and four torpedo boats—followed its lead. Ten minutes later, Vishnevetsky called a meeting of commanders aboard his battleship.

Although he had orders to engage the Potemkin, he clearly told his officers that he would do no such thing, at least until Krieger came with reinforcements. They would approach Odessa, but if the Potemkin refused to capitulate and remove the red flag from its mast, Vishnevetsky's squadron would not fire on it, inciting a sea battle. Instead they would surround the harbor entrance and lay siege to the battleship, until it ran out of food or coal.

He explained to his officers that, given the unreliability of the squadron's crews, this was a better tactic than engagement, echoing the advice he had received from the former Black Sea commander, Admiral Nikolai Skrydlov, before setting to sea. Vishnevetsky planned to send a note to Odessa, ordering city officials to prevent the Potemkin from accessing supplies. Eventually, the sailors would be forced to surrender.

The squadron would attack only if the Potemkin fired first, and in this case, their strategy would be to send torpedo boats into the harbor, while the battleships stayed at sea and kept the Potemkin from escaping. Vishnevetsky reminded his officers that this option would be only the last resort. Early the next morning, he said, they would advance toward Odessa, but before they did, two torpedo boats would reconnoiter the area. The crews should prepare for a night attack against the squadron by laying out anti-torpedo nets around each battleship and keeping a close watch. Before dismissing his officers, he handed out copies of a proclamation for them to read to their crews. Gently and without creating alarm, they were to inform their men of what to expect in the coming hours.

But Vishnevetsky was too late. A couple of hours into the journey, on board the Twelve Apostles, sailor Mikhail Volgin had learned the reason for the rushed departure from Sevastopol. The officers were obviously nervous, smoking more than usual and trying to fraternize with the sailors as if they wanted a favor.

Then a comrade approached him, winked, and said, "What's wrong? Either you've lost everything gambling or something very bad happened." The coded greeting meant there was a meeting of sailor revolutionaries in the machine room.

After Volgin and the others arrived, one of the battleship's senior mechanics, Gerasimov, a dedicated Social Democrat, confirmed that their mission was against the Potemkin. Then he said, "The question's whether we take over the Twelve Apostles ourselves, or go to the bottom of the sea instead."

Those gathered gave the mechanic a questioning look.

"All the other captains said they can't rely on their crews," he continued. "But our Captain Kolands, the old fool, has given his word to Krieger that he'll destroy the Potemkin. If his crew hesitates to fire, he promised to ram the Potemkin and blow up both ships."

The sailors left the machine room with troubled looks. Few slept more than a couple of hours during the early morning voyage to Tendra. Instead, Volgin and the others plotted how they could stop their officers and considered the consequences if they failed. Throughout the squadron, similar conversations played out. A few sailors had told their officers, even before they arrived at Tendra Island, that the crew would refuse to fire on the Potemkin if directed to.

This being the case, Vishnevetsky was right to be cautious in preparing his proclamation. At 7 P.M., the captains gathered their crews at the forecastle of each ship and read Vishnevetsky's words straight from the page, beginning, "Brothers, an incident unprecedented in the Russian fleet's history has taken place on the battleship Potemkin. The crew has revolted, and, it's rumored, murdered the commander and raised the revolutionary flag."

The officers then explained their plan to fight a war of attrition against the Potemkin, whose supplies of food and coal would last for no more than seven days, turning the ship eventually from a "fortress to a trap." There was a lesson here for any sailor who attempted a similar crime. This squadron had been sent to "tame" the Potemkin and "to end the scandal." Its size guaranteed that the mutinous battleship's crew would understand the threat and capitulate.

The captains read the conclusion of the proclamation:

I have no intention of attacking the Potemkin, thereby only exacerbating this shameful situation. I'll take every action to bring about a peaceful resolution. In this, I'm relying on your cooperation, my brothers, and ask you to heed the voice of reason, which tells us to act just as I've described. Nothing, however, prevents us from being attacked. In this case, God forbid, our blood will spill, or we'll spill the blood of our comrades. We will have to respond to the attack with force.

Remember, brothers, and believe me when I say that every word written in this proclamation proceeds directly from my heart and is dictated by the love for the Russian sailor, which I bear.

Rear Admiral Vishnevetsky.

On the St. George, Captain Ilya Guzevich finished and dropped his hand, holding the paper to his side. Looking out at his crew, he demanded they do their duty. With a faint reply, less than one in every ten sailors of the 616-man crew said, "We'll try." The rest remained silent. Just as on the Twelve Apostles, a band of sailor revolutionaries, organized by Tsentralka leader Dorofey Koshuba, were on board the St. George, plotting to stop their officers from firing on the Potemkin. Despite what Vishnevetsky might like them to believe, he and the rest of the officers were no brothers of theirs.

The sun was setting over the city when Matyushenko and the others returned to the battleship, having survived the ambush. They found a crew that had grown even more anxious as another day ended with the ship anchored outside of Odessa.

The boatswains had kept the sailors occupied. Even at idle, the crew maintained their watches and duties. Gunners scoured the barrels to prevent deterioration from humidity and sea air. The cooks peeled potatoes and scrubbed dishes. The telegraphists hovered over their machines, waiting for any intercepts. The mechanics and stokers below cleaned the boilers, lubricated the engines, and swept away the coal ash. Guards stood watch over the quarterdeck. Medics bandaged the injured, and the cobbler mended shoes. The bakers baked, and the launderers laundered. The Potemkin was like a small city, and there was always work to do.

But as much as they kept to their routine, the sailors knew they were on a rogue battleship that the tsar would blow out of the water, if need be. Sitting outside the harbor, the battleship made an inviting target, and the ship's leaders still had not indicated what they planned to do next. Doubts about these leaders were heightened by the petty officers, who whispered to the crew that surrender was their best—and only—option. Otherwise, they promised, the sailors were signing their own death warrants. Then, late that afternoon, a ship had been sighted on the horizon, instigating cries of "The squadron is coming!" It turned out to be the training ship Prut, which never approached the harbor; but the panic it caused revealed the crew's raw nerves.

When Matyushenko came aboard, the sailors were gathering for a general assembly. Although the sailor committee had earlier agreed to shell the military council meeting and had procured a few city maps for this purpose, they had hesitated in revealing this decision to the crew, precisely because of the uneasy mood. Nonetheless, they needed the men's approval before turning the guns on the city.

The sailors formed an impromptu amphitheater around the capstan, where the committee leaders spoke. In the front rows, sailors sat cross-legged on the deck. Behind them, several rows of sailors stood, arms akimbo or held tightly across the chest. Above them, sailors dangled their legs over the sides of the upper decks or sat atop the twelve-inch guns, looking down on Kirill, who was the first to speak. They listened skeptically as the Odessan revolutionary told of the enslaved Russian masses and the heroic struggle in which they were joined.

Then sailor Dymchenko stood and introduced Feldmann, saying simply, "Here, lads, a good man wants to say a word to you."

In the sharp, fluid speech of a veteran debater looking to score point after point, Feldmann told the sailors that the line had been crossed and their chances of pardon were lost. Their struggle now was to the end.

"True. Very true," some sailors called out," bolstering Feldmann.

"We must deal the enemy a deadly blow," he urged. "The troops in Odessa are ready to come over to us. They're only waiting for the first step. This step you must take. Every moment of delay strengthens the enemy and weakens us. Ahead of you is the glory and honor that are granted to fighters for the people. Behind you is the yoke of your former torturers. You choose which one you want. What we must do is to open fire on the city, now—without wasting any more time."

Caught up in the revolutionary fervor, the crew shouted, "Hurrah!" But this excitement dissolved into protests against firing on the town. One sailor pushed forward, saying that bombing Odessa would hurt the people, not the tsar or his government. Such arguments splintered the crew. Perhaps they were better off leaving the city behind in their wake, some felt.

Kirill sidled up to Feldmann after he stepped off the podium. "You went to work too abruptly. It can't be done like that." Only one man, Kirill admonished, one of the sailors, could demand that kind of action.

"Away with the landsmen!" the crew chanted. Then they looked to Ensign Alekseyev, calling for him to speak. The officer meekly retreated from the deck.

Mingling among the crew on the quarterdeck, Matyushenko watched the sailors quarrel; a few almost came to blows. Unable to remain silent another second, he jumped onto the capstan. The shouting faded into murmurs. Then silence. Then he began, channeling all his inner resources: his sadness over Vakulenchuk's death, his desire for revenge for what Kakhanov had done over the past twenty-four hours, his hatred of the tsar. The words came almost as a release, and they gushed forth.

"Stay, brothers! We must have unity! Our rulers have done enough in setting us against each other, and now you want to fall to killing yourselves. All the people are looking to you now. Listen, we were beaten and harassed by our officers, treated worse than dogs. We couldn't stand to live like that any longer, and we killed our dragons. Now we rule ourselves, yet will the Russian people have a better life because we dropped our officers into the sea? Will a peasant or worker be better off because of that? Don't forget, I'm not talking about strangers—our brothers and fathers are among them. The people are broke, many of them are being killed in the war, and the whole Pacific fleet has been sunk."

The sailors were enthralled, as much with Matyushenko's delivery as with what he had to say. On the capstan, he spoke with the urgency of a commander in the midst of battle. But more than anything, his power over the men came from the intensity of his movements. He threw his whole body, slight and lost as it was in his uniform, into his speech. He swayed and twisted and rocked back and forth. He thrust his arms up and down and left and right with a conductor's frenzy. And the sailors followed where he led.

"Now they want to hang us all, because we stand up for what's right. No, we won't let them finish us without a fight. If we want a better life for the people, not only for ourselves, we must fight. We're here with an entire fortress loaded with huge guns, but we're just watching indifferently while our brothers get killed. Shame on us! The Russian people will damn us in the future. We can't let it happen! We'll achieve freedom or die today, together with our brothers!"

"We stand for the same cause!" the crew roared—almost involuntarily, they were so galvanized by his speech—"We will die all together!"

"Okay, then. Let's start the bombardment of the city today," Matyushenko returned. "We can't wait any longer. They should pay for the blood of the workers they spilled. Do you agree?"

"We agree!" the crew answered.

"Well, brothers, now stand steady. Go to your places."

When Matyushenko stepped down, sailors slapped his back and shook his hand. In that moment, and for the moment, his words had unified the crew again, and they set off to prepare to fire on the city. Matyushenko, too, was swept away by his own words and by the feeling that had overcome him as he spoke. Afterward, he embraced Kirill and, holding him by the arms, said, "We will die together." His tone was that of one who had chosen and accepted his own fate.

"Weigh anchor and get up steam!" came the order across the quarterdeck. A bugle sounded across the Potemkin, hurrying the sailors to their stations. Black smoke coughed out of the funnels. The decks were cleared, the iron hatches battened down. Gunners brought up shells from the magazines and removed the tompions from the gun muzzles. A first-aid team led by Dr. Golenko prepared bandages and stretchers as if they were going into battle. Matyushenko strode toward the bridge while sailors drenched the wooden decks with cold seawater to prevent fires catching from the shells. Within ten minutes, every gun, from the quick firers to the twelve-inchers, was loaded. Spare dark-gray shells coated with greasy lubricant were stacked on the decks. At 6:35 P.M., the Potemkin moved out half a mile to take up a better firing position.

Dusk had fallen over the city, the silhouettes of its buildings fading with each passing minute. In the port, a scattering of unattended warehouse fires still burned; a slight breeze drew the smoke across the harbor's waters. As the Potemkin turned its starboard side toward Odessa, the sailors stood silently at their posts, most of them feeling a strange blend of nervous excitement and somberness. On the bridge, Matyushenko waited beside Dymchenko, Nikishkin, Kovalenko, and Ensign Alekseyev, all looking out toward the city. Their three targets, identified on a map without any scale, included the city theater where the council meeting was taking place and Odessa's military and city government headquarters. Kirill and Feldmann watched from the bridge as well, standing well back and out of the way.

The sailor committee had voted to fire three blank shots in succession from the thirty-seven-millimeter guns to warn the city's residents to take cover. That these shots also gave the military council the chance to do the same was a risk they accepted. A trumpet blasted a few staccato notes, signaling the gunners to fire. The sailors cringed, waiting for the concussion, though they would be startled by its earsplitting blast nonetheless.

Boom.

The trumpet blared again.

Boom.

The trumpet.

Boom.

The acrid smoke from the first three shots drifted away as a sailor hoisted a red battle flag on the foremast. Using a range finder, senior signalman Frederick Vedenmeyer, a redheaded sailor who was also a committee member, relayed the range and bearing to the six-inch-gun crew. The gun mount turned slowly into position. A trumpet sounded again. Silence. Then a thunderous clap followed a flash of white and green light from the gun's muzzle. The Potemkin quaked. The crew looked toward Odessa, the concussion echoing in their ears.

With the firing of the shell, Matyushenko felt that he was sending a message personally to the tsar. He should free the land to the peasants. He should give up the factories to the workers. He should open his palaces to the people. Otherwise, the sailors would force him from the throne.

"Overshot!" Vedenmeyer called out to the bridge.

A horrified hush fell on the Potemkin as everybody realized that the errant high-explosive shell likely meant innocent deaths. Matyushenko harshly instructed Vedenmeyer, "Get it right this time. We must hit the theater and nothing else, do you understand?"

Vedenmeyer relayed new coordinates to the battery. The bridge signaled fire. The crew covered their ears. The gun flashed. Kovalenko heard the shell whine and, with his binoculars, spotted people on the Primorsky Boulevard dashing for cover. Along with everyone on the bridge, he prayed this shell would find its mark.

In Odessa's streets, panic reigned. After the warning shots, many hurried to their basements or simply dropped to the floor. Off Preobrazhenskaya Street, soldiers who were camped in the square scattered to the nearest buildings, yelling to one another that the Potemkin had finally launched its campaign of destruction. The American consul foolishly stood at his window to watch the barrage, swearing later to his superiors in Washington that he saw the first shell arc into the sky.

That first shell crashed into a corner building in the city center. A cloud of dust and smoke consumed the house. The walls groaned, then fell in on themselves. A three-yard section of an adjoining roof teetered for a moment before shearing off and shattering on the street below. Hysterical screams filled the area. A pair of startled carriage horses bolted down the street, throwing off their driver. A resident next to the destroyed house came out on his balcony, pushing aside hunks of stone and wood, in complete shock. He looked down to the street, asking a tailor who worked in a neighboring shop why someone would want to blow up his house.

As the dust cleared, people came out of their houses to inspect the damage. The roof of 71 Nezhinskaya Street was split in two, its timber supports frayed like rope. Nobody emerged from the house. A giant hole gaped in the wall of a nearby building. Telegraph wires had fallen, and the streets were strewn with rubble. Underneath a nearby acacia tree, a janitor discovered a fragment of the six-inch shell. In a daze, people surrounded it and pointed at the smoking fragment as if they didn't know from where it came.

Then came a second roar from the harbor and the shrill whine of another shell descending into the city. The street emptied.

"Overshot. Overshot!" announced several spotters on the Potemkin after the second shell disappeared over the rooftops.

Sailors pounded their fists against the bulkheads and swore at the gunners. They had meant to strike the military council, not rain terror on the city. If they opened up a broadside with all their guns, they would no doubt eventually find their mark, but many innocent civilians would die in the process.

"A white flag! They're waving the white flag!" Vedenmeyer cried out, shortly before the sailors could blame him for the inaccuracy of the six-inch battery.

The misfirings had undermined the crew's resolve to fire on the military council, and now the sighting of a white flag gave them reason to cease the barrage altogether, though Vedenmeyer was the only one who spotted the flag in the encroaching darkness.

Soon after, the sailor committee met and agreed on a new ultimatum to send to General Kakhanov, demanding that the police and troops withdraw from the city. While the crew unloaded the shells from the batteries, Matyushenko and Feldmann boarded a launch to deliver the ultimatum. In case they were arrested or attacked, Matyushenko brought two signal flares to alert the Potemkin. He stashed one under his shirt. He left the other on the boat for the sailors to use.

When the launch landed ashore, the port was as still and empty as a cemetery. On the way to the Richelieu Steps, the men passed several charred corpses that had yet to be carted away after the previous night's violence. The ominous silence was broken only once, by the hooves of a pair of galloping horses hauling an ambulance carriage. At the top of the steps stood General Karangozov, a dwarf of a man, towered over by the host of officers at his side. He asked why they had come.

"We've fired two shells today as a demonstration that we may take decisive action at any moment," Feldmann said. "But we don't desire unnecessary bloodshed. We invite the commander of the troops to come out to us on the ship or to send some fully authorized person to hear our demands."

"And if we don't accede to this request?" Karangozov asked crisply.

"Then we consider ourselves free to take action," Matyushenko said, deadpan.

"Very well. I'll report your request to General Kakhanov."

"If we don't return to the ship by ten o'clock," Feldmann warned, "they'll open fire from all the guns."

While the sailors waited at the top of the Richelieu Steps, Karangozov departed to military headquarters. He found Kakhanov in a foul temper. The city's elite were fleeing Odessa, taking freight trains where necessary, and all the factories remained shut down. Civilian officials had wired the minister of the interior, begging for help and insisting that the military had "no means to appease the population." Kakhanov had still not received an update from the squadron, and even though his troops had finally set up artillery positions on the hillsides, they would be useless if the Potemkin maneuvered out of range. No, he told Karangozov, he refused to meet with these mutinous sailors who had dared fire on the city—and, what was worse, without any accuracy. They were mad, Kakhanov finished, if they believed he would discuss terms.

Fifteen minutes later, Karangozov returned to the sailors. He relayed this response to Matyushenko in a contemptuous tone: "The commander in chief doesn't desire to enter into any negotiations with mutineers. If you want to fire more shells at the houses of peaceful citizens, then God and the tsar will be your judges. I can only suggest you give yourselves up and ask for forgiveness. Now you can go."

Matyushenko was stunned by the response: would Kakhanov truly rather let them destroy the city than accept their demands? If he would not listen to reason, then the sailors had no other choice. The delegation returned to the Potemkin. One committee member hissed, "We'll show him whether we are mutineers. If he won't talk to us, then let him answer to our twelve-inch guns." Another sailor voiced what others were hoping: "If only the squadron would come, Kakhanov wouldn't talk to us like that."

They resolved that if the squadron failed to show up the next day, they would launch another assault on Odessa, concentrating their guns on the main boulevards and city parks where the soldiers were stationed. This time they would sustain their bombardment until Kakhanov surrendered. When two representatives from the city's united revolutionary commission pulled their boat alongside the Potemkin later that night, the sailors told them of their plan and asked that they be ready to join this battle against the government.

The sailors settled in for another night. Those on watch panned the harbor's waters with projector lights, fearful that the Black Sea Fleet command might launch a torpedo attack on them in the dark.

They were blind to the fact that an attack had already been perpetrated—from on board the Potemkin itself. The signalman Vedenmeyer, a trusted committee member, had double-crossed them.

Even before the battleship left Sevastopol, Vedenmeyer had been one of Golikov's informants. He reported on the Potemkin's revolutionary activities and was paid generously for his efforts. In the hours immediately after the mutiny, he had secured the fleet's secret codebooks from the captain's stateroom to prevent the sailors from using them.

Although Vedenmeyer blamed the overshots of the six-inch guns on their lack of a scaled and detailed map of Odessa, he had purposely given the battery crew the wrong range. And the "white flag" that he had seen was actually soldiers in the port signaling by semaphore: "Keep up the bombardment. In the morning, we will join you." His sabotage that evening would later earn him the tsar's thanks. He was the first of two traitors to act decisively against the Potemkin.

All photos are from the Central Naval Museum,
St. Petersburg, Russia, unless otherwise noted.