"SEE 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.
"One thousand meters."
Krieger signaled to the Potemkin by semaphore, "Drop anchor."
"Rostislav and Three Saints: cut your engines," Matyushenko answered.
Krieger repeated his command. Neither party intended on backing down.
Matyushenko responded, "Cut your engines or we will fire."
Despite this threat, Matyushenko reminded the Potemkin's sailors that the committee's decision was to fire only if fired upon first. He still believed the crews of the squadron would revolt if the choice fell between killing their fellow sailors or overthrowing their officers. It was his only hope.
With the squadron less than a half-mile away from the Potemkin, Kirill remained on the bridge with Feldmann, staring at the dull luster of the Rostislav's guns. Kirill found himself surprisingly calm, even as he envisioned the blood of dying men on the Potemkin's decks, their cries, maybe even his own among them, lost in the thunderous roar of the guns.
On the Rostislav, a sailor watched, mesmerized, as the lone battleship bore down toward him. He later recounted, "It was the kind of scene one sees only once in a lifetime. The Potemkin, powerful, frightening, massive, and strong, advanced at full speed at the squadron of five battleships. This was a scene suitable for an artist's brush." The squadron sailors felt a mix of terror and rapture, as the Potemkin came closer and closer. Only a few sailors were visible on the Potemkin's decks, giving the battleship the appearance of a ghost ship.
On the Rostislav's bridge, Vice Admiral Krieger was similarly stunned at the Potemkin's suicidal approach. His orders were clear: sink the battleship if the mutinous sailors refused to yield. Yet he hesitated to give the command to fire to his crew or to the other captains in his squadron. It was an order that Captain Kolands of the Twelve Apostles, for one, awaited impatiently.
"Two hundred meters."
Kostenko held course. The Potemkin was about to cleave the squadron in two, running a gauntlet of five armor-plated battleships with scores of guns, all within point-blank range. The possibility of retreat had passed long ago.
"One hundred meters."
Desperate to get the squadron to fire on the Potemkin, thereby instigating a mutiny, Matyushenko ordered Kostenko to veer toward the Rostislav, threatening to ram her. But the squadron and battleship, moving in opposite directions, both nearly at full steam, closed on one another before the command could be executed.
The Potemkin crossed into the five-hundred-meter channel between the Rostislav and the Three Saints. An unnatural silence fell on the sea. No explosions of smoke and steel. No shrieks of panic and death. Hundreds of guns were aimed at the Potemkin, yet the only sounds were the deep, reverberating bass of the engines and the slow whine of the turrets as they tracked their quickly passing target. The Potemkin passed between the squadron's two columns. Many felt time slow down; seconds passed like days. A single gun or rifle shot, accidental or otherwise, from any ship would have precipitated a catastrophic chain reaction, sending hundreds of men to their deaths.
But there was only silence. Krieger lost his nerve, never giving the order to fire. When one of the Potemkin's six-inch guns pointed at his position on the bridge, he fell prostrate on the deck, along with several other officers. Resolved not to fire first, Matyushenko remained in the conning tower, watching the squadron pass harmlessly on either side. He felt little relief at escaping death. Instead, he was crestfallen that the other battleship crews had not mutinied.
Then, at that darkest moment on the Potemkin, when Matyushenko and the others felt they had been completely abandoned, several sailors on the battleships St. George and Sinop streamed onto their battle-cleared decks, waving their caps and shouting, "Hurray! Long live freedom!" On the Potemkin, sailors left their stations and poured out of hatches onto the upper decks to greet their comrades, urging them to commandeer their ships. Kovalenko, who had come up from the engine room, tried to rein in the sailors. "Gun crews!" he barked. "Back to your posts. The squadron still has its guns aimed at us."
The brief celebration ended as the Potemkin steamed past the St. George and the Sinop; the torpedo boats at the squadron's rear scattered to clear a path for the battleship to the open sea. Matyushenko told Kostenko to turn the battleship around so they could advance against the squadron once again. He was exultant at the first sign of support from the other crews, later writing, "This was the moment we had been waiting for.... The end of tyranny was near. The tsar's puppets had ordered us a welcome of shellfire. Instead, there were cheers."
But, as Kovalenko warned the celebrating sailors, the engagement was far from over. Krieger and the other captains still had command of their battleships and crews. The squadron moved toward Odessa, perhaps to wait out the Potemkin or strategize a new battle plan. Then a signal from its flagship ordered a hard turn to port. They were coming back.
Krieger sent a message by semaphore to the Potemkin: "Drop your anchors."
Matyushenko had his signalman answer, "Officers of the squadron are to leave their ships and go ashore."
Neither paid any attention to the other, and, once again, the Potemkin and the squadron sped toward each other across the sea. From the shores of Odessa, an epic sea battle looked imminent. Krieger hoped the mutineers would capitulate on the second pass, but he quickly realized how wrong he was. The Potemkin kept coming toward him, the double-headed eagles on its bow getting clearer and clearer. As the battleship reached the squadron, apparently about to pass through again, one sailor, then two, then wave after wave of sailors poured onto the decks of St. George, the Sinop, and the Twelve Apostles, greeting the Potemkin as a victor. Krieger was dumbfounded. Only his and Vishnevetsky's decks were still cleared for action.
As the Potemkin passed between the St. George and the Sinop, Matyushenko burst out of the conning tower. He yelled at the Sinop's sailors, lined three deep at the railings, "Arrest your officers and join us." Matyushenko was so excited that Kirill had to hold him by the waist to keep him from pitching overboard. In response, the sailors threw their caps into the air and shouted in unison, "Long live the Potemkin!"
Then Krieger signaled the Twelve Apostles to attack the Potemkin, knowing Captain Kolands would do whatever he could to maintain control of his crew and sink the mutineers. Krieger was right. Not yet past the Potemkin, Captain Kolands ordered his helmsman to steer a direct course at the battleship. He would ram it and then detonate his magazines. It was worth his life, he thought, to end this shameful affair. Returning to the bridge, he ordered his officers to regain control of their sailors and clear the decks. They were going into battle.
The Potemkin's signalman intercepted the order from Krieger. As the Twelve Apostles turned its bow, he flashed by semaphore: "Twelve Apostles: stop." But Kolands was committed. The distance between the battleships closed. The revolutionaries aboard the Twelve Apostles had prepared for this moment, however. With several others, Volgin rushed down to the machine area, forcing aside the lieutenant in charge of the engines. "Full speed reverse," Volgin screamed at the sailors. Moments later, the Twelve Apostles shuddered to a halt, less than ten meters from the Potemkin, which steamed safely past.
Realizing that his orders had been countermanded, Captain Kolands scrambled to the conning tower and pressed the switch to detonate the magazines, an act of suicide and outright murder on his part. Fortunately for the crew, the revolutionaries had cut the wires between the tower and the magazines that had been rigged in order to sabotage the battleship before the squadron left Tendra Island. Kolands bitterly proclaimed, "Shame! It's shameful not to die for the tsar and the motherland."
Unaware of how close they had come to destruction, the Potemkin's crew watched the squadron proceed out to sea, their officers apparently still in command. When the squadron returned to formation, retreating in the direction of Sevastopol, the Potemkin sailors were stunned, wondering how it was that none of the ships had joined them. To have shown down the Black Sea Fleet was certainly impressive, but what they really needed was more crews to mutiny, adding strength to their rebellion.
Just when they were convinced that their cause was lost, a lookout spotted the St. George falling from the squadron's line.
When the squadron turned out to sea after its second advance on the Potemkin, Captain Guzevich, on the St. George's bridge, received an angry message from the Rostislav.
"Why are there so many lower ranks on the decks and not at their battle stations?" Krieger demanded to know.
Guzevich looked across his battleship. The riotous mass of sailors was growing every minute, and his officers seemed powerless to stop the flow of men. "Our time has come!" the sailors yelled. "Off with the officers. We don't need them. Cast them into the sea." Calls to mutiny paralyzed Guzevich with fear.
"The crew is rebelling," he finally replied to the flagship. "They are threatening to throw the officers overboard."
"Go to Sevastopol," Krieger insisted. "Go to Sevastopol."
In the midst of these exchanges, Koshuba and several other revolutionaries stormed onto the bridge, rifles in hand, demanding that the captain stop the battleship.
From the moment the squadron had first set its course from Tendra Island to Odessa, Koshuba had worked to convince the St. George's crew to dismiss any orders to fire on their brothers. During the Potemkin's advance against the squadron, with its guns leveled at the two columns of battleships but silent, Koshuba ran through the lower decks, a shovel in hand, urging sailors to mutiny. His fellow revolutionaries, including Zakhary Borodin and Simon Deinega, summoned the crew to leave their stations and go to the decks to show their allegiance to the Potemkin. Those who tried to thwart these efforts were knocked aside; to push through, the revolutionaries used whatever they could find—mops, steel pipes, even a fishing pole. For many sailors, shouts of "We've no need for the tsar, only freedom!" and "Enough of our commanders spilling our blood!" were enough to motivate them to back the uprising.
By the time the Potemkin made its second pass, the revolutionaries on the St. George had chased hundreds onto the decks. Their officers did not fire one shot in resistance. While Captain Guzevich turned the battleship toward Sevastopol with the squadron, Koshuba broke into the armory and dispensed rifles to the sailors. Then he hurried to the bridge to take command.
"Stop the engines," Koshuba ordered the captain.
Guzevich refused. Koshuba knocked him out of the way and sent a message down to the engine room to come to a full stop. A revolutionary comrade left to take over the helm. A few minutes later, the St. George slowed down, leaving the formation.
"Why is the St. George not moving?" Krieger asked by semaphore.
Koshuba allowed the captain to give this answer: "The crew wishes to land the officers and join the Potemkin."
"Use all your power and follow the squadron," Krieger demanded.
"I can't. I can't. I can't," Captain Guzevich desperately responded, in his final communication with the squadron. Stalling for time, hoping Krieger would turn around to help him, Guzevich tried to negotiate with the crew. He called out to the sailors below, asking those who wished to go to Sevastopol to stand to the battleship's starboard side and those who wanted to join the Potemkin to stand to port.
When some stepped to the battleship's port side, he begged, "Brothers, what do you want? I'll do anything you want. Let's just go to Sevastopol." Standing by his side, Lieutenant K. K. Grigorkov, the only officer on the bridge armed with a revolver, felt shamed by his captain's words. This shame was deepened by Guzevich's offer to send to the Potemkin any sailor who so wished and his promise not to report the mutiny.
"I'm captain now," Koshuba said harshly, interrupting Guzevich. He then put the officers under guard and directed the battleship toward the Potemkin. Before they moved, he had the signalman relay their intentions by semaphore.
Then Koshuba and his fellow revolutionaries left the bridge to secure their command. They were surprised to find that the crew was more willing to refuse their captain's orders than they were to take the irrevocable next step of aligning themselves with the Potemkin. At most, Koshuba could depend on seventy sailors from the crew. On the spar deck, some even demanded outright that the St. George return to Sevastopol.
On the Potemkin, Matyushenko waited for his signalman to interpret the semaphore message. "The ... crew ... of ... the ... St. George" the signalman announced, watching his counterpart moving his flags back and forth through the telescope, "wants ... to ... join ... you.... We ... ask ... the... Potemkin ... to ... approach ... us."
A wave of joy and relief broke over the crew. The Potemkin finally had won an ally. A true revolutionary squadron had been born. While Matyushenko and Kirill formed a team to approach their sister ship, Ensign Alekseyev, who had finally emerged from the stateroom where he retired during the confrontation, preached caution. He advised that even though the rest of Krieger's battleships were retreating, Captain Guzevich might be trying to get close enough to torpedo or ram them.
To avoid a trap, Matyushenko had his signalman order the St. George to cut its engines. Yet the St. George continued to approach, now less than one thousand meters away. Alekseyev pressed the sailors to fire if the battleship came any closer. Then they saw the St. George's signalman rapidly flag the Potemkin. "The crew of the St. George is asking comrades from the Potemkin to come to their ship."
The St. George slowed down and dropped anchor. Through the telescope, Matyushenko saw Captain Guzevich still standing on the bridge. "Arrest your officers," Matyushenko relayed, "and bring them to us."
"The situation is bad. Not everybody agrees. We can't manage. Send help as soon as you can," the St. George signaled.
Stirred to action by the plea and disregarding Alekseyev's further cautions, Matyushenko called the torpedo boat Ismail to the Potemkin's side and boarded it with Kirill and several committee members, including Dymchenko and Kulik. They sped toward the St. George. Some sailors waved their caps enthusiastically at the torpedo boat; others eyed them suspiciously from the lower decks.
When they arrived at the St. George, a rope ladder was sent down, and Matyushenko climbed aboard with the others. Then the torpedo boat moved to the St. George's stern, its firing tubes aimed at the battleship's side in case the invitation to board was an ambush. Matyushenko warmly greeted Koshuba and his revolutionary comrades on the quarterdeck, but their reunion was cut short when Matyushenko recognized the dangerous situation on the battleship.
Half the crew welcomed them with shouts of triumph, and Koshuba obviously had control of the battleship's key stations. But others on the St. George treated them like intruders. They wanted the Potemkin sailors cast off, so they could reconnect with the squadron. Equally troubling, the ship's officers looked down on them from the bridge. Though they were under guard and looked scared, their presence alone signified that the mutiny had yet to be secured. Suspecting the sailors could turn against them, Matyushenko sent one of his shipmates back to the Potemkin. He wanted an armed guard sent as soon as possible.
Then Matyushenko stepped up on a capstan on the forecastle to attempt to inspire the sailors to join them. He knew exactly what he wanted to say, but he found that from overuse and lack of sleep, his voice was strained and robbed of its strength. Turning to Kirill, he asked him to take his place.
The Odessan revolutionary mounted the capstan and looked across the sea of faces. Those sailors close to him eagerly awaited his words, but others, near the hatches at the back, frowned and watched with hostility. Believing his words might decide the fate of the St. George mutiny, Kirill spoke with thunder in his voice. "Our exhausted people, stripped of the most basic of rights, can no longer bear their humiliation and powerlessness. They're coming out on the streets of the cities and villages, fighting the tsar who's torn apart Mother Russia. Will our sons and brothers, dressed in soldier's clothes, be the tyrant's butchers, punishing our very own who only seek a better life? We, proud men of the Potemkin, refuse to murder our own people, and won't allow anybody else to either."
He paused, turning his gaze to the officers on the bridge. "You gentlemen ... You're rotten servants of the tsar. You're responsible for rivers of innocent blood. They lie on your conscience. But the day of judgment has come.... Now there's no place for you here. This ship, built by workers, has now passed into the hands of men who will serve and protect these workers, not enslave or oppress them."
His words provoked an outcry from the crew: "Up for the people's freedom! Off with the tyrants!"
Kirill pointed at the officers. "In the name of the people, you're under arrest and will be taken to shore."
When a handful of armed St. George sailors attempted to usher the officers from the bridge, Lieutenant Grigorkov suddenly shrugged off his captors. Disgusted by the thought of being taken captive and shamed by his captain, he stepped to the end of the bridge. Without hesitation, he raised his pistol, put the barrel to his temple, and fired. His body fell over a railing and into the sea. Everyone stood, astonished, for a moment. Then Kirill told the sailors to take the other officers to the admiral's stateroom.
After Guzevich's removal and another stirring speech by Kirill, most of the crew committed to siding with the Potemkin —or at least they raised their voices to that effect. By the time the armed party led by Feldmann had arrived, the crew had already assembled to elect a committee of sailors to lead the battleship. Meanwhile, the officers packed their belongings. Once ready, Matyushenko led Guzevich and his subordinates down into the steam launch. Sitting between the sailors, the officers, eyes downcast and uniforms stripped of epaulettes, looked pathetic. One kept muttering wretchedly, "That I should live to see such things." Revolver in hand, Matyushenko guarded them on the way toward the Potemkin.
When they drew up to the battleship's side, Kovalenko came down to see the officers, several of whom he knew well. Yet he no longer felt a bond with them, and they traded glances like complete strangers.
A half-hour later, the two battleships weighed anchor and steamed together toward Odessa, the Ismail following behind. As before, Kirill and Feldmann wanted to chase after the squadron, but the Potemkin's leaders thought they had tempted fate enough that day.
Once back on the Potemkin, Matyushenko was flushed with success. The sailors had won their revolutionary squadron, and the rest of the Black Sea Fleet was shamed into retreat, its captains weakened by crews obviously sympathetic to the rebels' cause. The days without sleep, the constant concern about betrayal, the false starts in Odessa—all were worth the victory they had now won. Many shared his elation. Kovalenko imagined the great steps they would make the next day. Nothing seemed impossible now. Kirill also looked to the future with optimism, later describing the crew's mood that afternoon on their return to the harbor:
Looking at the sailors, sensing their eagerness, we felt good in our hearts. The nightmare of fear that our efforts would fail was replaced with confidence in our success and victory over our age-old enemy.... Tomorrow we would take over Odessa, establish a free government, create a people's army, march on Kiev, Kharkov, and other cities, join with the peasants in the villages. After that, we would march on the Caucasus, along the shores of the Black Sea. Everywhere we would bring freedom and independence from slavery. Then on to Moscow and finally St. Petersburg.
Sixteen miles southeast of Odessa, the Black Sea Fleet squadron hove to and anchored. For the final time that day, Krieger called a meeting of his captains to decide their next move. Shaken by the St. George's defection, Krieger wanted to know if they believed their crews could be relied on to reengage the Potemkin. Their response was unanimous: no.
The captains of the Sinop and Twelve Apostles had narrowly escaped outright mutiny on their battleships; they did not want to test their good fortune by going after the Potemkin again. If given the order to fire, their crews would assuredly revolt. Vishnevetsky agreed that this outcome seemed likely on his battleship as well. Krieger then suggested a surprise night attack undertaken by their torpedo boats, but this idea was rejected because even the small, more easily managed crews on these ships could not be trusted. He felt they were all in an intractable situation. He could return to Sevastopol in disgrace or risk the entire fleet to mutiny. With reluctance he chose the former, but he made one last attempt to negotiate with the Potemkin before the squadron left.
At 7:15 P.M., torpedo boat No. 272 steamed toward Odessa, captained by I. N. Psiol, the second officer of the Three Saints. On its approach, Psiol signaled the Potemkin to surrender. "Never!" was the response. Still, the Ismail left the side of the battleship to open talks. Fearing that the Ismail would attack, Psiol reversed direction and sped back to the squadron.
Since even this meager attempt ended in failure, Krieger telegraphed Admiral Avelan, informing him of the St. George mutiny and Krieger's planned retreat to Sevastopol. Before returning, the squadron discharged its six- and twelve-inch guns. The shells fell harmlessly into the open sea.