Authors: Neal Bascomb
Later that same afternoon, Chukhnin learned from Krieger, who had since arrived back at Sevastopol, that a similar spirit plagued the rest of the fleet and that rumors were spreading about a planned uprising on the
Ekaterina II.
The battleship's senior doctor had learned of the potential mutiny, became drunk from worry, and blurted out to his captain, "Your Highness will soon be Our Highness, and you'll be chasing crabs in the sea.... We're having a revolution. Taking off to see the
Potemkin
in the evening. Everyone's going. I'm going."
Given such reports from Sevastopol, it was doubtful Chukhnin would have been soothed by the knowledge that the
Potemkin'?,
leaders felt alone and in desperate need of help. From his perspective, he felt as if only his steadfast leadership and forceful measures prevented his entire command from falling into revolutionary hands and joining the
Potemkin.
That night, before learning of the
St. George's
surrender to Kakhanov, Chukhnin wrote to Tsar Nicholas that more trouble should be expected within the Black Sea Fleet. He painfully concluded, "I am afraid the sea is in the hands of mutineers."
Reports about the
St. George
and the
Vekha
brought some measure of relief. Chukhnin ordered Captain Guzevich to return to his command and obtain complete confessions from every crew member. These "criminals" were to state their participation in a "military mutiny" with a priest present, and if they declined to do so, Guzevich was to guarantee that they would never see their families or hometowns again. Chukhnin would brook no mercy in dealing with these men.
The
Potemkin\
departure from Odessa created even more problems for the vice admiral. Nobody knew where the crew planned on going next. All sea traffic had ceased days before, but a mutinous ship of its strength was a threat to every city on the Black Sea, Russian or otherwise, and there was nobody to stop them. As a prosecutor in the region remarked to the Russian minister of justice, "The squadron has returned to Sevastopol. The mood among the naval units is disloyal. Chukhnin is in Nikolayev. Krieger and the naval leaders refuse to take energetic measures. The population is nervously awaiting events. Otherwise, everything is in order."
The governor-general of the Caucasus instructed his troops to stockpile twenty oxen and sacks of flour and bread on Sukhumi's wharf in case the
Potemkin
demanded provisions. In other seaside cities, officials organized militias and instructed their citizens to leave the streets if the battleship arrived in their harbor. It was widely accepted that the
Potemkin
would bombard to ruins any city that resisted the mutinous sailors.
Chukhnin was scheduled to leave by express train to Sevastopol that evening so that he could ensure that his commands were followed to the letter. It would have been faster to go by sea, but given his fleet's rebellious state and the unknown location of the
Potemkin,
he feared being caughtânot so much out of concern for his own well-being as, rather, the knowledge that his subordinate officers were inept. As he bluntly telegraphed Avelan, "It would not suit me to be captured." The pressure from above to end the mutiny was intensifying, and the fact that he could not travel safely on the Black Sea made him tremble with anger. It was yet another black mark on his once-sterling reputation.
Throughout the day, Chukhnin had made exhaustive efforts to capture or sink the
Potemkin
and save the Black Sea Fleet from ruin. First, he sent the plans drawn up on his journey from St. Petersburg to his staff to secure Sevastopol against any sea approach. Second, given the dangerous inroads revolutionaries had made at the naval base, he instructed Krieger to detain any disloyal lower ranks, no matter the number. Third, he told Krieger to disable the machinery and weapons systems on battleships known to have untrustworthy crews, to forestall further mutinies. Fourth, Chukhnin alerted the lighthouses dotted along the Black Sea coast to maintain a close watch for the
Potemkin.
Fifth, he asked the War Ministry to amass troops at coastal batteries outside every major Russian port in the region and order them to fire on the
Potemkin
if it came within range. Sixth, he won the foreign minister's commitment to open diplomatic negotiations with neighboring countries such as Turkey and Romania about how to deal with the
Potemkin
if it was sighted along their coasts; Russia requested that supplies be withheld from the battleship and that, if possible, its surrender be secured.
But Chukhnin placed his faith mainly in his seventh and final measure, one known only to Avelan and a handful of others. The six other orders were defensive in nature, but the Black Sea Fleet commander detested simply playing a waiting game. He preferred to be on the offense, but until he brought his sailors into line, he dared not risk another mutiny or the loss of more officers by sending additional battleships after the
Potemkin.
This reduced his offensive options to using destroyers or a squadron of torpedo boats, but even their smaller, more easily supervised crews were impossible to trust. Avelan had suggested recruiting men from St. Petersburg's Imperial Guard, whose devotion to duty was inviolate, to staff these ships, but they would take too much time to assemble and train.
Then, while in Nikolayev, Chukhnin had received an unexpected but welcome offer from Lieutenant Andrei Yanovich. The thirty-two-year-old officer served under Rear Admiral Sergei Pisarevsky, the head of the Black Sea Training Unit and the most reliable, battle-tested commander that Chukhnin had in the fleet. Eager to restore the tsar's honor and avenge the murders of Golikov and the others, Yanovich informed Chukhnin that he had assembled a score of like-minded, hard-line monarchist officers willing to take a destroyer and hunt down the
Potemkin.
Although known to have a penchant for gambling and too quick a temper, Yanovich was a daring young lieutenant (later, he would be one of the first volunteers for the Russian air force). He had already participated in a perilous Arctic Ocean hydrographical survey and had been rewarded with the St. Stanislaw Medal for his Baltic Fleet service under then Captain First Rank Rozhestvensky. A senior gunnery specialist, he now lectured at the Sevastopol training fleet in electrical and mechanical engineering, proving his knowledge of every aspect of running a ship. In short, he was perfect for the mission.
Chukhnin readily accepted the offer, arranging for Yanovich to take command of the
Stremitelny
("swift"), the fleet's fastest destroyer, which could travel at twenty-six knots and was armed with torpedo launchers and two rapid-firing guns. Every effort was made to keep the mission secret so that the destroyer could take the
Potemkin
by surprise.
At 1:30
P.M.
, on June 19, while Chukhnin delivered some remaining orders before leaving Nikolayev, the "suicide squad," as Yanovich and the other officers referred to themselves with an air of braggadocio, slipped out of Sevastopol's harbor. They steered a course northwest toward Odessa. Chukhnin may well have wished he were on board with them, seeking revenge for himself.
While the vice admiral focused on chasing the
Potemkin,
another crew within his fleet was on the precipice of mutiny. Anchored off Tendra Island, the training ship
Prut
was prepared to leave for Sevastopol once its Sunday Orthodox service was over. At 9:30
A.M.
on June 19, over six hundred sailors gathered on the deck, two-thirds of them machinist trainees. A priest chanted a prayer in front of several large icons. The ship's commander, Captain Second Class Aleksandr Baranovsky, was eager for the service's end so the ship could return to the safety of the fleet's base. Since awakening that morning, he had sensed something was wrong about the crew. They seemed unusually tense and excited, and he had already received a telegram from Krieger, warning him to be particularly vigilant of his men.
Unknown to Baranovsky and his twenty-two officers, sailor Aleksandr Petrov, one of Tsentralka's leaders who had recently been removed from the
Ekaterina II
because he was a suspected agitator, was ready to seize the ship. On the foredeck, he cautioned patience to several other revolutionary sailors, including machinist D. Titov and firemen I. Adamenko and I. Atamasov. They awaited word that their comrades were in place to break into the arms room. Behind Petrov, a sailor passed around a flask of vodka, saying, "Come on, boys, take a drink to brace yourselves!" Atamasov snatched away the bottle and warned the sailor to be quiet. They could not be caught now.
Early on June 15, the
Prut
had left Sevastopol to survey Tendra Island's training fortifications. After Baranovsky dropped anchor off the island, he received a telegram from the Black Sea Fleet command, alerting him of the
Potemkin
mutiny and instructing him to take the training ship to Nikolayev for caution's sake. Offering no explanation to his crew, Baranovsky took the
Prut
to the port city, arriving the next morning. He restricted his crew from going ashore, citing the recent fights between sailors and Cossacks as the reason. The crew first learned of the
Potemkin
mutiny that night when a teenager swam out to the ship and tossed a military cap onto the deck. It was stuffed with Social Democrat proclamations about the battleship. The next day, fifty sailors went to the port to load military cargo and confirmed this news. Excited, Petrov and the other revolutionary sailors insisted they mutiny themselves.
Later that afternoon, the
Prut
left Nikolayev for Sevastopol to deliver the cargo. En route, Baranovsky received instructions from Krieger to wait off Tendra Island until further notice. The training ship arrived early on June 18. The crew spent the day idle, waiting for the squadron and speculating about what had happened to the
Potemkin.
That night, Petrov met with over fifty sailors in the passageway that ran alongside the propeller shaft. He confirmed they would overthrow the ship the next morning and then go to Odessa to join the
Potemkin'
s revolutionary squadron (which, they were unaware, had broken apart only hours before their meeting). Titov would signal when to launch the mutiny.
Several minutes into the Sunday service on June 19, Titov learned that the other sailors were in position and ready. With a voice strong enough to carry across the ship, he yelled, "Hurrah! Hurrah!" Petrov and Titov led the charge from the foredeck down to the arms room, where another comrade had already broken the locks with an iron bar. While they handed out rifles, a young lieutenant rushed to stop them and was stabbed in the chest with a bayonet. On the quarterdeck, a boatswain also tried to quell the mutiny, but, moments after calling for the guard, he was shot and fell wounded to the deck. As planned, the sailors ran with their loaded rifles to key sections of the ship. The watch officer, who refused to step off the bridge, was killed with a bullet to the head, but otherwise, the mutineers met no resistance from the officers and petty officers. Most of the crew rallied to their side or stood by passively while they took over the ship.
Titov captured Baranovsky while the captain was trying to escape to his stateroom. "Where do you think you're going? Do you want to be shot?" Titov asked, shoving him toward the quarterdeck. Baranovsky found himself surrounded by sailors whom he had once threatened with death if they merely attended a socialist meeting. Adamenko told the captain he was under arrest and to drop his saber. When Baranovsky hesitated, the fireman struck him several times in the face. Then he was thrown down onto the deck. The sailors screamed, "Cast him overboard!" Baranovsky pleaded for his life. Finally, Petrov stepped in to prevent his death. On the other side of the ship, the priest held forth his crucifix, trying to mollify the crew. A sailor cut the priest's hand with a bayonet and said, "The devil himself wouldn't have allowed what you've allowed to go on here."
A short time later, the sailors corralled the rest of the officers into their wardroom and stripped them of their epaulettes. Little bloodlust, which had for a time overwhelmed the
Potemhin,
was evident during the first hour of the mutiny on the
Prut
(except in the case of two sailors, who dragged a wounded lieutenant by his arm to the infirmary, taunting him the whole while as to when he planned on dying). Once the ship was secured, Petrov and Titov cheered from the bridge: "We are free! Nowâon to Odessa!" Then they instructed one of the navigation officers to chart a course to the city. They warned him, "If you try to deceive us, we'll never forgive you."
During the journey, the crew elected a sailor committee, with Petrov as its leader. Afterward, he gave a rousing speech, telling the men that they were participants not in a mutiny but rather in a revolution to win their freedom. However, at 4
P.M.
, when they steamed into Odessa, they were crushed to discover that the
Potemkin
was gone from the harbor. With no shells for the guns, the
Prut
was helpless against attack and desperate for the protection of the powerful battleship whose cause it had come to join. Less than an hour later, the training ship left Odessa, short on coal. Petrov paced the decks, wondering where the
Potemkin
had gone and what they were to do now.
Onshore in Odessa, General Kakhanov alerted Sevastopol that the
Prut
had entered the port and that no officers could be seen on the bridge.
Many miles away on the Black Sea, the
Potemkin
proceeded toward Constanza, its crew unaware of the
Prut
mutiny. Petty Officer M. Zubchenko stood by a railing on the battleship's starboard side. In his hand he held a bottle into which he had slipped a note, which he prayed would be found ashore. A couple of hours before, the sailor committee had told the petty officers they would be shot if they were caught spreading propaganda against the mutiny. Scared for his life, Zubchenko had written a message he hoped would reach his family: "Orthodox fellow believers! I ask you to inform my dear wife and children that I'm dying not by my enemy's hand but rather by the hand of my brother.... Every minute I expect death, only I don't know what it will be. Dear Marusya, I beg you, forgive me. I am dying for Faith, Tsar, and Fatherland. I strongly embrace you in my dying arms.... Bury me in the Sevastopol cemetery. June 19, 1905."