Having received the order of Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky, General-in-Chief Suvorov immediately went to Ishmael. Arriving at the place, the great commander found that the troops were already retreating from the fortress, immediately ordered them to go back, inspected the entire corps, determining the negligence of the quartermaster and food services, in a harsh manner explained to both of them what would happen to them if the situation things will not change for the better. And he ordered to carry out the arrangement of the camp and the earthen fortifications and fences surrounding the fortress, so that the Turks had a complete impression of the preparation for a long siege. Not far from the fortress, so that it could not be seen from the walls of Ishmael, Suvorov ordered to erect earthen ramparts like the Turkish ones, to train the troops to take them by storm. Before Suvorov, Izmail tried to take by storm Gudovich, (Pavel) Potemkin and Deribas, but failed. Evaluating Ishmael as an impenetrable stronghold, they decided to move away from its walls to winter quarters. By the way, not only this troika considered Ishmael impregnable. So thought all of Europe and all the entourage of Catherine the Great. The nobles in St. Petersburg, having learned that the eccentric Suvorov was entrusted with the storming of this fortress, sarcastically and anticipated that the great strategist, who had no defeats at all, would certainly disgrace himself this time. In addition to the fact that the citadels of Ishmael, erected under the leadership of French engineers, were in the opinion of the whole world inaccessible, 265 heavy fortress guns were installed on them. The firing system was built in such a way that the enemy coming to the attack fell under the destructive crossfire of the Turkish artillery. The reserves of nuclei, grenades, gunpowder, lead, water and food in Izmail were at least a year and a half of the siege. The Turkish garrison outnumbered Suvorov's corps by at least 4 thousand bayonets. The seraskir Aydozle-Mehmet Pasha had more than 35 thousand troops, while Suvorov had no more than 31 thousand. The Russian general had up to 180 artillery pieces at the disposal of the Russian general, and many of them were not suitable for storming the fortress, there were not enough mortars and howitzers. The great commander personally conducted reconnaissance, the situation was augmented to him, he did not build any illusions, the task was seen as prohibitively difficult. Alexander Vasilyevich, in the course of all the Russian-Turkish campaigns in which he participated, sought to take the Turkish strongholds by storm and strictly refused to siege. The fact is that the Turks buried the dead (many of whom died during epidemics) around the fortresses, it was a kind of biological weapon, laid down for centuries. Already digging trenches on the territory of such cemeteries is not great, and the besieging troops had to set up camps here. In addition, during artillery shelling from the fortress walls, the graves were opened. Russian soldiers were infected and many more people died from disease than on the battlefield during battles. For this reason, even the most brutal assault gave less losses than a long siege. Assessing the situation, General-in-Chief Count Suvorov-Rymniksky decided to storm Izmail, which he reported to Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky in a report. To be honest, only one person believed in the possibility of the capture of Izmail by Russian troops, Alexander Vasilyevich himself.
