Morning at the corps headquarters began with the sound of telegraph machines.
The signals room had barely fallen silent throughout the entire night. Operators continuously received new messages from Stavka, Petrograd, army headquarters, and railway administrations. Fresh telegram sheets quickly piled up across long wooden tables beside maps of the Southwestern Front and organizational schemes for the new corps.
Outside, the last remnants of winter snow slowly turned into gray mud beneath the cold early spring rain. Nearby, the railway station never stopped moving. Trains arrived one after another carrying reinforcements, artillery, horses, engineering equipment, and officers assigned to the forming corps.
The headquarters stood far from the front lines.
But the war could still be felt everywhere.
Thousands of soldiers, supply wagons, hospital trains, and endless military эшелоны passed through the station every day. The air smelled of coal smoke, wet uniforms, mud, and steam from locomotive engines.
Inside headquarters, however, the atmosphere remained tense and unusually restrained.
The portrait of Nicholas II still hung on the wall of the main office. Yet almost nobody looked toward it anymore. Officers spoke more quietly than usual, and nearly every conversation eventually returned to the same subjects: Petrograd, the Provisional Government, unrest, and the future of the army.
The door opened once again.
A young signals officer quickly stepped inside carrying several fresh telegrams.
—"Messages from Stavka and Kyiv, Your Excellency."
Pavlo Skoropadskyi gave a short nod and took the papers.
For several seconds, the only sounds inside the office were the crackling stove and the muffled clicking of telegraph machines from the neighboring room.
Bezruchko stood beside a large railway map, reviewing reports about troop transports assigned to the corps. Sliwinski sat at the table checking lists of officers and units that were still arriving to complete the new formation.
—"More new orders?" he asked calmly.
Skoropadskyi glanced through the first telegram.
—"The Provisional Government demands the preservation of complete order in the army and the continuation of allied obligations."
Handziuk let out a tired, humorless chuckle.
—"As if anyone still understands how exactly that order is supposed to be maintained."
Nobody answered.
Too much had changed too quickly over the last few days.
Only recently the army had fought in the name of the Emperor and the Russian Empire. Now telegrams arrived from a new government that many officers had barely imagined could even exist a week earlier.
Outside the station, the long whistle of an arriving locomotive echoed through the damp morning air.
Through the window, another military train slowly rolled to a stop beside the platform. Soldiers leaned out from the wagons while railway workers shouted instructions and officers checked unit rosters under the smoke drifting across the station.
The formation of the corps continued.
But the mood inside the army was beginning to change.
Skoropadskyi set aside the first telegram and picked up another.
This message came from one of the reserve regiments assigned to the corps.
During an evening gathering, soldiers had demanded explanations regarding the events in Petrograd and the abdication of Nicholas II. Several men openly spoke against continuing the war. The regimental command requested additional instructions.
Bezruchko frowned.
—"It begins."
Sliwinski looked up from his documents.
—"For now, they are only talking."
—"Today they talk," Bezruchko quietly replied. —"Tomorrow they form committees."
Silence settled across the office once again.
Everyone understood too well how dangerous political disputes inside the army could become.
Especially now, when half the corps was still being assembled from units arriving from different sections of the front and rear.
Skoropadskyi slowly walked toward the window.
On the platform, soldiers smoked beside the train cars while animatedly discussing something among themselves. Even from this distance, it was obvious that they were speaking about more than supply issues and service routines.
They were speaking about politics.
And that was something new.
—"Morale?" Skoropadskyi asked without turning around.
Handziuk did not answer immediately.
—"The men are exhausted."
A short pause followed.
—"The war has gone on too long. And now there is a revolution on top of it."
Skoropadskyi silently nodded.
He understood that without reports.
Three years of war had slowly exhausted the Empire. Not only the army, but also the railways, industry, logistics, and people's faith in the old order itself.
Now all of it was beginning to surface at once.
The rapid clicking of the telegraph machine sounded again from the neighboring room.
A few moments later, the signals officer returned.
This time the expression on his face looked noticeably more tense.
—"Message from army headquarters."
He quickly handed over another sheet.
Skoropadskyi read through the report.
During several soldiers' meetings in rear units, speakers had demanded broader authority for soldiers' committees. In one formation, officers had already been interrupted openly during assembly.
Bezruchko exhaled irritably.
—"The army is beginning to discuss politics instead of war."
Nobody inside the office argued with that statement.
The courtyard of the reserve regiment was noisy despite the early hour.
Soldiers gathered in small groups beside the barracks, smoking, arguing, and discussing the latest news from Petrograd. Near the parade ground, several men read aloud from a fresh newspaper brought overnight from Kyiv.
Only a month earlier, such gatherings would have been dispersed immediately by the NCOs.
Now nobody even tried.
Near the wooden steps of the barracks stood a young staff captain who was clearly struggling to maintain order while watching the growing argument among the soldiers.
—"I'm telling you, things will be different now!" one infantryman said loudly. —"There's freedom in Petrograd already."
—"Freedom or not," an older front-line veteran with a St. George ribbon on his coat answered irritably, —"the Germans won't leave on their own."
—"Who even needs this war anymore?" another soldier interrupted. —"We've been rotting in mud for three years."
Voices of agreement immediately rose around him.
Most of the soldiers here were ordinary peasants who had survived years of war. Many had been fighting since 1914. They were exhausted by the front, endless casualties, poor supplies, and constant uncertainty.
Now, after the abdication of Nicholas II, all the accumulated anger and exhaustion were beginning to rise to the surface.
The staff captain finally stepped forward.
—"Enough arguing. Return to your duties."
Several men reluctantly fell silent.
But the old obedience was already disappearing from their voices.
One soldier frowned.
—"Why should we even keep fighting now?"
The officer looked at him sharply.
—"Because the war is still going on."
—"The Emperor's gone," someone immediately replied from the crowd. —"Everything's going to change now."
Voices rose again across the courtyard.
Some argued about land. Others spoke about peace. Several discussed freedom and new rights for soldiers.
A few men were already talking about rumors of soldiers' committees appearing in other units.
The staff captain noticeably paled.
He still tried to maintain the old discipline, but the situation was slowly slipping beyond the control of officers like him.
The soldiers were becoming less afraid to argue openly.
That frightened the old command structure more than anything else.
Near the stables, two sergeants quietly observed the gathering.
—"Before this," one of them muttered darkly, —"half of them would already be under arrest for talking like that."
The second gave a tired smirk.
—"Before this, there was still an Emperor."
For several seconds, neither man spoke.
Gray smoke slowly rose above the camp from the field kitchens. From the railway station came the distant noise of arriving trains. Somewhere near the parade ground, officers still attempted to conduct ordinary drills.
But the old army was already disappearing.
The uniforms remained. The shoulder boards remained. The orders and formations still remained.
Yet inside, the army itself was beginning to change rapidly.
And almost nobody yet understood how far those changes would go.
By evening, the corps headquarters had gradually grown quieter.
Most officers had already returned to their offices or left to inspect newly arrived units. The long corridors became noticeably calmer, though the rapid clicking of telegraph machines still echoed from the communications room.
Darkness slowly settled outside.
At the station, unloading operations continued beneath the dim railway lamps. Figures of soldiers, railway workers, and sentries moved through the drifting steam of locomotives standing beside the platforms.
Inside the main headquarters office, only trusted men remained.
Pavlo Skoropadskyi, Marko Bezruchko, Oleksandr Sliwinski, Yakiv Handziuk, and Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko.
Spread across the large table were: maps of the forming corps, railway schedules, telegrams from Petrograd, and reports about morale inside the units.
For several minutes, the officers silently reviewed documents.
Finally Handziuk leaned back heavily in his chair.
—"In all my years of service, I've never seen disorder like this in the capital."
Bezruchko gave a short, humorless smirk.
—"And this is only the beginning."
Sliwinski looked up from the map.
—"Not everything is lost yet. The Provisional Government is still trying to hold the country together."
—"Hold it together?" Bezruchko calmly repeated. —"Right now there are too many people trying to command the country at the same time."
He picked up one of the telegrams.
—"The government, the Duma, the Soviets, the garrisons, the committees..."
Omelianovych-Pavlenko quietly added:
—"And all of them are promising the army something different."
Silence settled across the room once again.
Everyone understood that the greatest danger now was not the revolution itself.
It was the breakdown of authority inside an enormous country that was still fighting a world war.
Skoropadskyi calmly reviewed another report concerning the arriving units.
Several regiments had already arrived understrength. Some soldiers had fallen behind during transport. Railway junctions were becoming overloaded. In other units, arguments between officers and soldiers were becoming more frequent.
For now, the situation remained manageable.
But even experienced headquarters officers were beginning to feel uneasy at how quickly events were changing.
Handziuk slowly shook his head.
—"Three years of war pushed the Empire to its limit. Now everything that built up beneath the surface is beginning to come out."
—"Especially inside the army," Omelianovych-Pavlenko added.
Bezruchko irritably tossed another telegram back onto the table.
—"The soldiers felt freedom too quickly."
Sliwinski answered calmly:
—"After losses like these, it was inevitable."
A short pause followed.
—"People are exhausted not only by the war. They're exhausted by the old system itself."
Outside, another locomotive whistle echoed across the station.
Skoropadskyi briefly turned his gaze toward the window.
Beyond the glass, military trains continued moving through the railway junction. Despite the revolution and the growing crisis in the capital, the enormous military machine of the Empire still functioned.
But the entire system was slowly beginning to lose its stability.
Handziuk finally broke the silence.
—"Do you think the front will hold?"
For several seconds, nobody answered.
At last Skoropadskyi spoke calmly.
—"For now."
A short pause followed.
—"But we shouldn't expect everything to calm down quickly."
Bezruchko studied him carefully.
—"You think the unrest will continue?"
Skoropadskyi paused briefly before answering.
—"After shocks like this, countries rarely return to the old order immediately."
The room once again fell silent.
Outside the station, trains continued moving through the darkness while the rapid clicking of telegraph machines still echoed from the neighboring room.
The Empire continued living its familiar military life.
But now nobody could say what it would become within the next few months.