The first reports about the Third Army disaster were met with disbelief at First Army headquarters.
On the Eastern Front, rumors always moved faster than official orders.
Especially bad ones.
One staff officer entered with another report.
—"The enemy continues expanding the breakthrough."
A few minutes later, another arrived.
—"Communication with several Third Army formations remains unstable."
Then a liaison officer arrived, covered in road mud.
He looked completely exhausted.
—"Confirmed. Third Army has begun a general withdrawal."
The room grew noticeably quieter.
One general abruptly rose from his chair.
—"A general withdrawal after only two days of fighting?"
A General Staff officer answered without emotion.
—"If they remain on their current positions, several corps will be encircled within twenty-four hours."
The general stared at the map for several seconds.
—"So Gorlice was not simply a breakthrough."
The staff officer answered wearily.
—"No, Your Excellency. It was the beginning of the collapse of the entire southern front."
Nobody argued anymore.
Too many reports were confirming the same reality.
When Skoropadskyi returned to his division headquarters, Bolbochan, Bezruchko, and Omelianovych-Pavlenko were already waiting for him.
Maps covered the table.
Railway reports.
Ammunition inventories.
Emergency withdrawal orders.
Bolbochan broke the silence first.
—"Your expression suggests two possibilities. Either the Germans are already marching toward Kyiv, or Stavka has finally admitted everything is falling apart. Which option is worse?"
Bezruchko didn't even look up from the maps.
—"Judging by the state of the rail network, the second option is already happening."
Omelianovych-Pavlenko slowly removed his gloves.
—"I spoke with officers from Third Army today. They're no longer talking about the front."
He paused.
—"They're talking about roads clogged with wounded men, artillery, and soldiers who no longer know who commands them."
Bolbochan stopped smiling.
—"That bad?"
Skoropadskyi answered calmly.
—"When an army starts talking about roads instead of the front, the front is already dying."
The room fell silent.
Even Bolbochan stopped joking.
Orders began arriving almost nonstop.
Prepare phased withdrawals.
Accelerate evacuation of supply depots.
Prepare destruction of supplies that cannot be moved.
Inspect bridges.
Prepare railway hubs.
Maintain discipline among retreating formations.
Bezruchko studied the map.
—"If neighboring armies begin withdrawing faster than schedule, the railway system will stop functioning."
Omelianovych-Pavlenko added:
—"We're already seeing the first cases of small units withdrawing without authorization."
Bolbochan gave a cold smile.
—"While generals draw beautiful arrows on maps, soldiers are beginning to draw their own routes home."
Skoropadskyi looked at him.
—"That's exactly why discipline matters more than heroics right now."
Bolbochan said nothing.
But he didn't argue.
The roads were becoming worse with every passing hour.
Retreating Third Army formations.
Wounded soldiers.
Shattered artillery columns.
Refugees.
Government officials with families.
One First Army soldier watched the retreating columns pass.
—"They look like they lost the entire war in two days."
His comrade stared at endless lines of wounded men.
—"Maybe we're just watching the beginning."
The situation at Stavka looked no better.
Reports arrived almost continuously.
Some generals demanded immediate counterattacks.
Others insisted on shortening the front.
Others tried to determine the true scale of the losses.
Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich listened with a stone expression.
But even he already understood:
this was no longer the crisis of a single army.
Late that evening, new orders arrived.
First Army was to begin a phased withdrawal alongside neighboring armies.
Bezruchko quickly reviewed the documents.
—"If Third Army continues retreating at this pace, within days the entire front will begin moving east simultaneously."
Omelianovych-Pavlenko added calmly:
—"And if the Germans maintain this tempo, some armies won't even have time to reorganize properly."
Bolbochan stared at the map.
The red markers kept moving farther east.
Too quickly.
—"So this is the Great Retreat?"
Skoropadskyi stared at the map for a long time.
He knew the worst was still ahead.
—"No."
Everyone looked at him.
—"This is only the beginning."
Two days later, First Army was already retreating alongside the rest of the front.
On maps, it looked organized.
On the roads, it looked very different.
Artillery columns.
Infantry formations.
Cavalry units.
Wounded men.
Supply wagons.
Refugees.
Shattered remnants of Third Army continued retreating through areas that First Army had considered deep rear territory only days earlier.
Some formations maintained discipline.
Others looked like armed crowds simply trying to move as far east as possible.
One general slammed his hand against a map at army headquarters.
—"At this rate, the Germans will outrun us simply because our own roads are blocked by our own army."
Another officer answered dryly.
—"They already are."
Skoropadskyi received orders for a limited counterattack.
The objective was specific.
German reconnaissance units and advance columns were moving too quickly toward a critical railway junction.
If it fell too early, the withdrawal of neighboring formations would become even worse.
Skoropadskyi studied the map alongside Bolbochan, Bezruchko, and Omelianovych-Pavlenko.
Bolbochan spoke first.
—"At least this order sounds honest. Nobody is asking us to save the front. They're asking us to hit a specific target."
Bezruchko pointed at the map.
—"The Germans are moving quickly, but their forward elements are stretched."
Omelianovych-Pavlenko added:
—"If we strike too late, we'll meet their main forces instead."
Skoropadskyi gave a short nod.
—"Then we hit them before that happens."
Bolbochan was given command of a forward strike detachment.
Several cavalry squadrons.
A horse artillery battery.
Several machine gun teams.
And a small number of infantry transported on horse-drawn wagons to reinforce captured positions quickly.
This was exactly the kind of operation he understood well.
Strike fast.
Disrupt movement.
Disappear before larger forces arrive.
The attack began in the morning.
A German reconnaissance column was moving with too much confidence.
They weren't expecting serious resistance.
The first Russian artillery battery opened fire without warning.
Shells slammed into the road.
Several German ammunition wagons erupted in flames.
Horses panicked.
Minutes later, Bolbochan's cavalry struck the flank.
The German column tried deploying machine guns.
Several crews were wiped out almost immediately.
One German officer attempted to organize a defense.
Seconds later, he was thrown to the ground when a panicked horse crashed into him during the cavalry assault.
On another sector, Russian infantry captured part of the German supplies.
Officers quickly examined captured documents.
Bezruchko received the captured maps.
His expression immediately darkened.
—"This is bad."
Skoropadskyi looked at the documents.
German advances were broader than expected.
Far broader.
—"They're not pushing in one direction."
Bezruchko slowly nodded.
—"They're searching for our entire operational rear."
By noon, German main forces began arriving.
First artillery.
Then infantry.
Then additional reconnaissance formations.
Bolbochan understood the situation immediately.
—"If we stay another hour, they'll bury us here."
One young officer protested.
—"But we're winning."
Bolbochan looked at him like he was an idiot.
—"Young man, if you only see the Germans you're currently shooting at, then you still don't understand the scale of this disaster."
He pointed toward the horizon.
New German columns were already approaching.
—"Withdraw."
The counterattack achieved its objective.
The railway junction remained in Russian hands.
German movement was delayed.
Several hours were gained.
But none of it changed the larger reality.
That evening, Skoropadskyi looked at updated front maps.
Neighboring armies were still retreating.
The German breakthrough continued expanding.
One local success changed nothing.
Bolbochan sat heavily on an ammunition crate.
—"We bought a few hours."
Skoropadskyi looked at the map.
—"Yes."
Bolbochan gave a bitter smile.
—"Doesn't sound very impressive."
Skoropadskyi answered calmly.
—"In weeks like this, history is no longer measured in victories."
He looked at the collapsing front.
—"It's measured by how long an army can avoid completely falling apart."
Within a week, the retreat no longer resembled a military operation.
It began to resemble the migration of an entire world.
The roads of Galicia were overcrowded with Russian infantry, cavalry, artillery, supply wagons, wounded soldiers, refugees, government officials, officers' families, peasants, priests, children, elderly civilians, and livestock. People carried whatever they could take with them. Everything else was abandoned—or destroyed before the Germans arrived.
At one railway junction, Bezruchko had been managing chaos for nearly two days without proper sleep.
Trains arrived.
Trains departed.
Some never arrived on schedule.
Others arrived carrying wounded men when ammunition had been expected.
A railway officer shouted:
—"We don't have enough rail platforms!"
Another yelled back:
—"Two more divisions will arrive here within hours!"
A third officer interrupted:
—"The artillery depots still haven't been evacuated!"
Bezruchko quickly reviewed the railway schedule.
—"Evacuate artillery ammunition first, medical supplies second, communications equipment third. Everything else moves afterward."
A logistics officer frowned.
—"And the food depots?"
Bezruchko answered calmly.
—"Whatever we cannot evacuate gets destroyed. We can rebuild food supplies faster than artillery without shells."
The officer went silent.
—"Carry out the orders."
Skoropadskyi rode through one of the cities being evacuated.
Only a month earlier, shops had been open.
People had argued about ordinary things.
Now panic consumed everything.
Windows were boarded shut.
Officials burned documents.
Military warehouses were set on fire before evacuation.
Children cried in the streets.
One elderly man grabbed a young officer by the sleeve.
—"You'll come back, won't you?"
The officer said nothing.
He simply looked away.
Skoropadskyi noticed.
And understood exactly why the officer remained silent.
Nobody could honestly make promises anymore.
Omelianovych-Pavlenko faced a different problem.
Several formations were beginning to lose discipline.
Exhaustion.
Defeat.
Poor supplies.
Constant withdrawal orders.
Everything was building pressure.
On one road, a group of soldiers attempted to leave their column.
Omelianovych-Pavlenko personally stopped them.
—"Where exactly are you going?"
One soldier answered with poorly hidden anger.
—"Home."
The general stared at him for several seconds.
—"Your home will fall to the Germans before you get there."
The soldier remained silent.
Omelianovych-Pavlenko continued more calmly.
—"If this army collapses now, none of us will have homes left."
After a long silence, the soldiers quietly returned to the column.
On another sector, Russian engineers prepared to destroy a bridge.
An officer watched as explosives were placed.
—"Has everyone crossed?"
—"The final units are crossing now."
He looked west.
Smoke was already visible on the horizon.
—"Detonate it."
Seconds later, the bridge vanished in fire and smoke.
Another road was gone.
But the Germans needed to be slowed.
Later that evening, Skoropadskyi, Bolbochan, Bezruchko, and Omelianovych-Pavlenko met inside a damaged school building converted into temporary headquarters.
Bolbochan looked worse than usual.
—"I saw the roads west of here."
He shook his head.
—"If someone told me a year ago that an entire army could look like a fleeing marketplace with artillery, I would've laughed."
Bezruchko answered tiredly.
—"You wouldn't laugh after working with railway officers."
Omelianovych-Pavlenko removed his dirty gloves.
—"That's not the worst part."
Everyone looked at him.
—"The men are still obeying orders."
He paused.
—"They simply believe less and less that those orders lead anywhere except another retreat."
The room fell silent.
Skoropadskyi looked at the map.
German offensives continued expanding.
Austrian forces were advancing with growing confidence.
More cities were preparing for evacuation.
And it was still only June 1915.
By the end of June, the pace of the retreat began slowing.
Not because the situation had improved.
Because the Russian army physically could not retreat any faster.
A new defensive line was being formed in desperate haste.
Engineers dug fresh trenches.
Artillery moved into new firing positions.
Shattered formations were merged together.
Reinforcements arrived late.
Officers tried rebuilding some kind of structure from the chaos of the previous weeks.
For the first time in a long while, one cautious word began appearing in headquarters discussions:
hold.
Skoropadskyi arrived at the new defensive sector early in the morning.
Open fields.
A small river.
Forested areas.
Several villages.
A strong natural defensive line.
At least on paper.
Omelianovych-Pavlenko studied the terrain through binoculars.
—"If artillery has enough shells, we can hold here."
Bolbochan gave a tired smirk.
—"Lately every military plan begins with the phrase 'if artillery has enough shells.'"
Bezruchko studied railway reports.
—"I'm more concerned about something else."
Skoropadskyi looked at him.
—"What?"
—"Several formations assigned to neighboring sectors still haven't arrived."
The room became quieter.
Soldiers dug trenches with almost no rest.
Many looked completely exhausted.
One soldier kept digging and quietly asked his comrade:
—"How many more defensive lines are we going to build?"
The other didn't even look up.
—"Until we run out of shovels."
Several nearby soldiers laughed weakly.
Dark humor was becoming one of the few ways left to survive emotionally.
Russian artillery moved into position.
A battery officer reviewed his ammunition stock.
His expression changed immediately.
—"That's all?"
A supply officer nodded tiredly.
—"For now."
—"How long will it last if the Germans attack seriously?"
The supply officer paused.
—"Not long."
For a brief moment, real hope returned.
German offensives slowed.
Units began reorganizing.
Some officers quietly said:
—"Maybe this is where we finally stop them."
Even Stavka cautiously began discussing stabilization.
Far too early.
Late that evening, Bolbochan returned from reconnaissance.
This time, he wasn't joking.
He threw a map onto the table.
—"The Germans are moving north faster than expected."
Bezruchko frowned.
—"How much faster?"
—"Fast enough that if the neighboring army collapses again, our flank will be exposed."
Omelianovych-Pavlenko slowly exhaled.
—"We haven't even finished preparing this defense."
That night, new orders arrived from army headquarters.
Neighboring formations were still retreating.
The new defensive line might not survive for long.
Skoropadskyi stared at the map for a long time.
Again, the red markers moved east.
Again, too quickly.
Bolbochan quietly asked:
—"Are we ever going to stop anywhere?"
Skoropadskyi didn't answer immediately.
Because he knew the truth.
The worst summer of the empire had only begun.
—"Not today."