"You are not bad at prediction," said Potemkin, with a smile, "but I have a method of divination far more infallible. My prediction is that I will have the town in three days."
He at once sent orders to Suwarrow, who was at Galatz, to come and take the town.
The obedient warrior, who seemed to be always at somebody's beck and call, quickly appeared and surveyed the situation. His first steps seemed to indicate that he proposed to continue the siege, the troops being formed into a besieging army of about forty thousand men, while the Russian fleet was ordered up to the town. But the deliberation of a siege never accorded with Suwarrow's ardent humor. His real purpose was to take the place by storm. He had taken Otchakof in this way the previous year with heavy loss, and with the slaughter of twenty thousand Turks. He now, on the 21st of September, twice summoned the city to surrender, threatening the people with the fate of Otchakof. They refused to yield, and the assault began at four o'clock of the following morning.
Battalion after battalion was hurled against the walls: the slaughter from the Turkish fire was frightful, but the stern commander hurled ever new hosts into the pit of death, and about eight o'clock the summit of the walls was reached. But the work was yet only begun. The city was defended street by street, house by house. It was noon before the Russians, fighting their way through a desperate resistance, reached the market-place, where were gathered a body of the Tartars of the Crimea. For two hours these fought fiercely for their lives, and after they had all fallen the Turks kept up the conflict with equal desperation in the streets. At length the gates were thrown open and Suwarrow sent his cavalry into the city, who charged through the streets, cutting down all whom they met. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when the butchery ended, after which the city was given up for three days to the mercy of the troops. According to the official report, the Turks lost forty-three thousand in killed and prisoners, the Russians forty-five hundred in all; the one estimate probably as much too large as the other was too small.
We may conclude with the story of Suwarrow's career in Italy and Switzerland against the armies of the French republic. The plan which the Russian conqueror had marked out on the slate for the Austrian generals was literally fulfilled. In less than three months he had cleared Lombardy and Piedmont of the troops of France. He forced the passage of the Adda against Moreau and his army, compelling the French to abandon Milan, which he entered in triumph. His next success was at Turin, a dépôt of French supplies, towards which Moreau was hastily advancing. The Russians took the city by surprise, driving the French garrison into the citadel, and capturing three hundred cannons and enormous quantities of muskets, ammunition, and military stores. The French army was saved from ruin only by the great ability of its commander, who led it to Genoa in four days over a mountain path.
The czar Paul rewarded his victorious general with the honorable designation of Italienski, or the Italian, and, in his grandiloquent fashion, issued a ukase commanding all people to regard Suwarrow as the greatest commander the world had ever known.
We cannot describe the whole course of events. Other victories were won in Italy, but finally Suwarrow was weakened by the jealousy of the Austrians, who withdrew their troops, and subsequently was obliged to go to the relief of his fellow-commander, Korsakof, who, with twenty thousand men, had imprudently allowed himself to be hemmed in by a French army at Zurich. He finally forced his way through the enemy, losing all his artillery and half his host.
Of this Suwarrow knew nothing, as he made his way across the Alps to the aid of the beleaguered general. He attempted to force his way over the St. Gothard pass, meeting with fierce opposition at every point. There was a sharp fight at the Devil's Bridge, which the French blew up, but failed to keep back Suwarrow and his men, who crossed the rocky gorge of the Unerloch, dashed through the foaming Reuss, and drove the French from their post of vantage.
At length, with his men barefoot, his provisions almost exhausted, the Russian general reached Muotta, to find to his chagrin that Korsakof had been defeated and put to flight. He at once began his retreat, followed in force by Masséna, who was driven off by the rear-guard. On October 1 Suwarrow reached Glarus. Here he rested till the 4th, then crossed the Panixer Mountains through snow two feet deep to the valley of the Rhine, which he reached on the 10th, having lost two hundred of his men and all his beasts of burden over the precipices. Thus ended this extraordinary march, which had cost Suwarrow all his artillery, nearly all his horses, and a third of his men.
These losses in the Russian armies stirred the czar to immeasurable rage. All the missing officers—who were prisoners in France—were branded as deserters, and Suwarrow was deprived of his command, ostensibly for his failure, but largely for the sarcasm already mentioned. He returned home to die, having experienced what a misfortune it is for a great man to be at the mercy of a fool in authority.