Matej's Legacy: A Czech Family's Journey Through the 20Th Century

By DONALD F. CHMELKA

Matej's Legacy is a nonfiction chronicle following the author's Czech
family through 20th-century history.
It is a sequel to Matej's Journey
to America that creatively traced the Chmelkas to
biblical times, and then journeyed with them through six millennia from
present-day Iraq, to the Czech Republic, and finally to America. The author's
great-great-grandfather was born as the Rocky
Mountain fur trade boomed in 1825,
and grew up on a 13-acre farm in Moravia
where the Chmelkas had been serfs since Charlemagne
was crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor.


Gold, homesteads and Texas
longhorns lured thousands of oppressed Europeans to America
in the mid-1800s, riding on steamships and railroads that now made
long-distance travel feasible. Prussia
established its European dominance in 1871 when railroads closed by war
reopened to civilians, allowing Matej to flee his beloved motherland for a free
homestead in Nebraska. He found a difficult life on the prairie with
grasshoppers, drought, hail and fires destroying crops—spurring his 14-year-old
son to join a Texas cattle drive and then to dodge Indians and gunfighters
throughout the romantic era of the Wild West. Matej died in 1902, leaving his
family little wealth, but a legacy, the first 100-years of which is covered in
this book.

Henry Ford, the Wright brothers,
Thomas Edison and other inventors were creating a New World,
and the Czechs finally found independence thanks to World War I, which put an
end to feudalism but gave birth to Communism. Technology in transportation,
agriculture and communications continued to expand during the Roaring Twenties,
and a Democratic America became the hope to millions still victimized by brutal
dictators. Good times gave way to the Great Depression and the author was born
on a primitive Nebraska farm as a
new war spread around the globe. Germany
and Japan were
brought to their knees, but the world was introduced to nuclear horror and was
soon threatened by Russian, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese
Communists—ungrateful allies vowing to bury American Capitalism.

The Middle East
and Africa were now freed from European colonialism, but
instead of developing natural resources for the benefit of their citizens,
rival leaders wallowed in tribal warfare.
Israel became the incendiary target for Muslims who controlled much of
the world's oil, now in great demand as the automobile and airplane gave new
mobility to man. As the world's leader, America
became its policeman, taking on one evil empire after another. Korea
and Vietnam
were not proud moments, yet Communism fell to economic demands that only
Democratic Capitalism could meet.

The Czech
Republic and the entire Russian
Bloc were suddenly free, but as the world relaxed, a war of terror began,
financed by Arab oil and executed by Muslim extremists. Outmatched in
technology, failing regimes retreated to guerilla warfare, determined to
outlast a culture softened by instant gratification. Lebanon,
Palestine, Yugoslavia,
Afghanistan and
Iraq became
major hotspots while Africa simmered under tribal
warfare with millions dying from AIDS and starvation.

Matej's Legacy integrates
the world events of the past 100 years with the Chmelka family story, including
the author's journey from farm boy to engineer and executive in the automotive
and aerospace industries. He retired in
1997 and began writing a two-volume epic, concluding in 2003 when the United
States remained the world's primary
protector; but sadly, often criticized and hated by cynics and political
opportunists. American immigrants are generally grateful for the opportunities
and freedom our great country offers, and many of the world's
downtrodden continue their desperate journeys to our shores. Others jealously
preach hatred and death to America,
but as descendants of those who sacrificed much to be here, let us never forget
our legacy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 2, 2003
• ISBN: 9781414032337

DONALD F. CHMELKA

Donald F. Chmelka lived the American dream, beginning life on a primitive Nebraska farm and retiring 55 years later as a corporate president.  He grew up without the luxuries of electricity, telephone or indoor plumbing and began his education in a one-room country school. Like his immigrant great-great-grandfather Matej, Don was determined to find a better life and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Nebraska in 1963. Don's professional career began as a reliability engineer in the automotive industry and then with Martin Marietta on America's first anti-ballistic-missile program.  He joined the Sundstrand Corporation in 1967, and for the next 25 years he traveled the world working on numerous commercial and military aircraft, missiles, torpedoes and spacecraft. The Space Shuttle program brought him to Los Angeles where he and his wife, Vikki, and their Catholic parish sponsored a Buddhist family from Vietnam. Don was impressed by the efforts of these refugees and began thinking of writing a book concerning the motivations of American immigrants and the technologies that made their journeys possible. A hectic career and continued education—including obtaining an MBA from Pepperdine University—kept him from that task until 1997 when he retired as president of a high-tech manufacturing company in Wichita, Kansas.  After 34 years of bouncing around the country while rearing three children, Don and his wife settled in Escondido, California and he began writing Matej's Journey to America.  That book, which follows the Chmelka journey through the notable events of history from biblical times to Matej's death in 1902, was published by 1st Books Library late 2002. Don then completed the story of his family's journey through the past 100 years of world history in Matej's Legacy.

Book preview

MATEJ’S LEGACY

A CZECH FAMILY’S JOURNEY THROUGH THE 20TH

CENTURY

By

DONALD F. CHMELKA

© 2003 by DONALD F. CHMELKA. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

ISBN: 1-4140-3233-1 (e-book)

ISBN: 1-4140-3231-5(Paperback)

ISBN: 1-4140-3232-3 (Dust Jacket)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2003098484

1stBooks-rev. 11/21/03

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1 PRELUDE TO THE 20TH CENTURY; THE BIRTH OF COMMUNISM

CHAPTER 2 EUROPEAN POWERS CONTINUE WORLD COLONIZATION

CHAPTER 3 HORSELESS CARRIAGES; FLYING AND TALKING MACHINES

CHAPTER 4 WORLD WAR I

CHAPTER 5 THE ROARING ‘20S

CHAPTER 6 THE GREAT DEPRESSION

CHAPTER 7 WORLD WAR II

CHAPTER 8 COMMUNIST EXPANSION; MIDDLE EAST INDEPENDENCE

CHAPTER 9 JET AIRCRAFT EN ROUTE TO KOREA

CHAPTER 10 HIGH SCHOOL IN NEBRASKA

CHAPTER 11 BIG RED

CHAPTER 12 GENERAL MOTORS AND VIETNAM

CHAPTER 13 BEGINNING MY AEROSPACE CAREER

CHAPTER 14 ROCKFORD TO LEBANON

CHAPTER 15 THE GOOD LIFE IN LA

CHAPTER 16 THE FALL OF A CAREER AND OF COMMUNISM

CHAPTER 17 LIFE AFTER SUNDSTRAND

CHAPTER 18 THE WORLD AS AN AUTHOR

CHAPTER 19 2003 HISTORICAL INSIGHTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

TESTIMONIALS

ABOUT THEAUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Matej’s Legacy is a compilation of information from many sources, all listed in the Bibliography section. I thank the authors and hope my use of your data will further honor your efforts. A number of individuals gave me the encouragement to create this book, or made particularly significant contributions to it, and I extend my heart-felt appreciation to each of you.

• First, my mother and father.

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My parents provided me the incredible experience of growing up in a time and place without the modern conveniences of electricity, telephone or indoor plumbing to which few Americans today can relate. I may not have appreciated such a life at the time, but what a perspective it has given me. I also thank them for the standards of ethics and sense of morality they instilled in me—taught most effectively by example and faith in a loving God.

My father only had an eight-grade education, but was an avid reader and always encouraged my interest in literature. I thank God for his 88 years of life and for granting him time to read an early draft of Matej’s Journey to America and Matej’s Legacy before he died on May 9, 2000 with my mother and me at his side. His worldly possessions may have been minimal, but he was a great role model in how to treat his fellow man. He was devoutly religious, yet he did not criticize, judge or impose his beliefs on others; thank you Dad for always supporting me and for being my loving father.

My mother joined him in eternity on September 7, 2002—the 65th anniversary of their wedding day. She was a simple but strong woman who always stood by her husband and lived for her family. She also had a strong faith in God but made no pretense in having an infallible understanding of His will; thank you Mom for giving me life and for always being there for me.

• My wife and children.

My wife, Vikki, our three children and their families are no doubt happy that I am completing Matej’s Legacy, perhaps now leaving me more time to spend with them. Despite my preoccupation with career and writing, my family has always been my #1 priority and I am proud of their values and accomplishments. I hope that Matej’s Journey to America and Matej’s Legacy will provide them and their descendants a deeper appreciation for their roots and for the sacrifices of immigrant ancestors who made their bountiful lives in America possible.

• My aunt Frances Kastl.

My mother’s younger sister introduced me to the joy of reading before I attended the one-room school where she had taught. She provided me books on Plasi, Prague, David City and the Kastl Family History containing data on her husband’s ancestors—the first Czech homesteaders in Saunders and Butler Counties. Frances is now the chief saleswoman for my books in Nebrask.

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• My second cousin Rosalyn Chmelka, author of Family History of Matej

Chmelk.

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The daughter of Matej’s grandson August, Rosalyn was a teacher in Nebraska for over 40 years while compiling Chmelka genealogical data, much of it from Czech Archives in Brno, Moravia. She provided me books on Bruno, Nebraska, Saunders County, and A History of Czechs in Nebraska containing priceless data on who came when, from where, and why. It included information on Peter Kastl and his six brothers, Matej and Jan Chmelka, and hundreds of other Nebraska immigrants. Thank you Rosalyn, Matej’s Journey to America and Matej’s Legacy could not have been written without your efforts.

• My aerospace business associates and executive managers

I was fortunate to become friends with many highly talented customers and to work for exceptional leaders at Sundstrand, including John Landstrom, Carl Sadler, Evans Erikson, Bernie Kittle, Dick Borzilleri, Jay Fernandes and Rich Detweiler. We were all devoted to this outstanding company, yet in the end, we shared a common fate: termination. Sadler and Detweiler then gave me the opportunity to complete my career aspirations as president of L&S—all included in Matej’s Legacy.

• The Vietnamese family of Vo Thanh Ven

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This Vietnamese family provided me the initial inspiration to write a book regarding immigration to America. Vo worked in support of the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War and was imprisoned after American troops left in 1975. He finally escaped with three generations of family hiding beneath a tarp on his homemade fishing boat, slowly motoring past Vietnamese patrol boats … never to return. After spending months in an Indonesian holding camp, Vo and his Buddhist family of eight were randomly linked to our Catholic parish and we became their hosts in 1978. Twenty years later I began to write Matej’s Journey to America and Matej’s Legacy.

• Vojin Joksimovich, Ph.D., author of Kosovo Crisis, A Study in Foreign Policy Mismanagement

My Slavic tennis friend was a great resource for Balkan information—often correcting popular misconceptions—and was generous in editing portions of Matej’s Legacy and in providing complimentary endorsements for both of my books. Vojin exemplifies the contributions that immigrants continue to bring to America, not all being uneducated field hands.

INTRODUCTION

I was deeply impressed by the determination of Vo Thanh Vien’s family to find new lives in America and I began to realize that these simple, uneducated immigrants were not unlike many of our ancestors who developed the courage to leave family roots for something hopefully better. As years went by in my busy aerospace career, I kept thinking of Vo and conceived the idea of writing a book about our immigrant ancestors, particularly the common men and women whose stories are seldom published.

After retiring in 1997, I began reading countless books and articles on the subjects of immigration and world history while also becoming interested in genealogy. The Chmelkas were ordinary at best, and their lands—the Czech Republic and the state of Nebraska—were certainly not prototypal of Hollywood blockbuster movie settings. Yet, I found my family and these relatively obscure lands deeply enmeshed in historical events that have had a major influence on today’s world. Reading led to travel, allowing me to walk in the shoes of my ancestors … and in late 2002, I published my first book, a comprehensive review of history entitled Matej’s Journey to America.

This epic chronicle weaves the Chmelka family through a timeline of notable world events, beginning with ancient myths on man’s creation and supplemented with archaeological data from respected historians. The name Chmelka translates as hops man in the Slavic-Czech language, and I learned that beer was likely first brewed in the region of present-day Iraq, perhaps during the time when construction began on the biblical Tower of Babel. From this creative genesis, the Chmelka family migrated slowly northward to Moravia in present-day Czech Republic, generally working as serf farmers while the great civilizations of the world rose and fell around them.

Matej Chmelka was my great-great-grandfather who was born in Slavetice, Moravia in 1825 and immigrated to a homestead in Nebraska with his family of nine in 1871. Matej’s Journey to America concluded shortly after his death in 1902, and Matej’s Legacy completes the Chmelka story covering the past 100 years. The two books overlap somewhat to provide background to major 20th-century events and to issues in the news today, particularly regarding the Czech Republic, Russia, the Middle East, Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, China, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Mexico, South America and Africa. While following the lives of my ancestors and of myself, Matej’s Legacy provides a historical review of the significant conflicts of the past century, chronologically integrated with the technological evolution of the communications, transportation and agriculture industries.

Matej had a sister named Frantiska, likely the great-great-grandmother of Jens Chmelka—the East German son of an Austrian prisoner-of-war in Russia during World War II. The orphanage home of Jens’ grandmother is presented according to known data, but some details are speculative. Ian Chmelka, believed to be Matej’s distant cousin, was the great-great-grandfather of Milan Chmelka Sr. who now lives in Hrotovice, Moravia. Vikki and I had the privilege of meeting the families of Milan and Jens in 1999 while visiting Matej’s farm home two miles from Hrtovice.

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The stories of my ancestors and others in this book are accurate to the best of my knowledge, as is my life story that recounts my joys and sorrows as a farm boy, engineer, corporate executive, and author. I have had a broad exposure to the aerospace industry, and to life in general, and I have not been shy in presenting my viewpoints regarding human behavior, politics, economics, warfare, and religion. Other positions can no doubt be supported by valid arguments, and it is wonderful to live in a country where we have the freedom to debate all issues in a civil manner. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 1

PRELUDE TO THE 20TH CENTURY;

THE BIRTH OF COMMUNISM

You’re a beer man! exclaimed a Brno bartender while I was researching the Chmelka family roots in the Czech Republic. Indeed, chmel is the Czech word for hops—the key ingredient that provides flavor to beer—and the ka ending of a Czech name signifies the male gender. From this revelation, I began to explore the genesis of beer, learning that it was brewed in Mesopotamia before mankind scattered from the biblical Tower of Babel. I attempted to trace my ancestry to man’s origin and found that the Slavic-Czech people are bound to a variety of European and Asian nationalities through a common heritage of Indo-European languages. These nationalities seemingly originated with Aryan tribes in central Asia, likely descending from the murderous Cain whose parents were expelled from Eden in present-day Iraq—if one accepts the biblical account of man’s beginning.

Historians suggest that Aryan tribes began migrating from central Asia in all directions around 4500 BC, and during the following millennium, my ancestors possibly reached the Zagros Mountains that separate today’s Iran and Iraq. In Matej ‘s Journey to America, I theorized that the first Chmelka was among those immigrants, Aryan Slavs captured by Semitic rulers in Babel and called slaves, now a descriptive word for their lowly state in life. One of those forlorn slaves was assigned to tend a field of hops and was named hops man, becoming chmel ka in the Slavic language as the Lord confounded the tongues of those building the biblical tower.

Various Aryan tribes were enslaved during the millennia to follow and became ancestors of the Slavic peoples of today, including those in Russia, the Czech Republic, and the Balkans. The Balkan Peninsula—bounded on the east by the Black and Aegean Seas, on the south by the Mediterranean Sea, and on the west by the Adriatic and Ionian Seas—is one of the most ancient regions in the history of man, and one of the most turbulent. Today, it comprises the countries of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), Albania, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and European Turkey. The first Balkan settlers emigrated from central and southern Europe, Asia and Asia Minor and were ruled and Christianized from the 1st century until the late Middle Ages by the Roman and Byzantine Empires. History particularly notes that a number of Slavic tribes began migrating to the Balkan Peninsula in the 6th century, fleeing Mongolian Huns who invaded their traditional Aryan lands in southern Russia. Bulgar tribes and other ethnic settlers arrived thereafter, each evolving its own culture, customs and religion thanks to natural geographic barriers to communication.

Navigation of the Black Sea began with colonial and commercial activities of ancient Greece and Rome, and later the Byzantine Empire. After the 6th century, Slavic tribes in the Balkans fought for control of their lands and of the Black Sea until the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453. For almost three centuries thereafter, the Black Sea was virtually closed to foreign commerce, until Russia set its sights on the region.

Nine-year-old Peter I of the Romanov Royal Family became Russia’s co-tsar in 1682. He was attracted by the culture of Western Europe—particularly that of Prussia—and decreed the reorganization of his growing empire along Western lines. He also set out to expand Russia’s influence and foreign trade by creating a great navy with access to both the Baltic and Black Seas. In 1695, Peter declared war on the Ottoman Empire, which surrendered the following year, and he became Russia’s sole tsar. Peter then traveled about Europe attempting to create a Grand Embassy against the Muslim Ottoman Turkish Empire, but instead, formed an alliance with Denmark, Poland and Saxony opposing Sweden, the strongest Baltic power at the time.

Russia had earlier established some control over the Ukraine by assisting the Ukraine Cossacks in their bid for independence from Poland. Now the Russian alliance, including Poland, began the Great Northern War that concluded in 1721 with Russia gaining a significant foothold on the Baltic Sea. At the same time, Eastern Orthodox Russia continued its battles against the Ottoman Turks and gained greater control of the Ukraine and increased influence in the Balkans. As a result, Peter was granted the titles of Great and Emperor with Russia emerging as a major European power. Although Peter was revered as an enlightened ruler who Westernized and modernized the Russian Empire, serfdom continued, but with some hope. He divided the landowner gentry into 14 classes called the Table of Rank, with promotion dependent on ability and service to Russia and not restricted by birth—this system remaining in place until the 1917 revolution.

Peter died in 1725, and 11 years later, Russia allied with Austria against Turkey and thereby took control of additional lands on the Black Sea. Catherine the Great ascended the Russian throne in 1762 and completed Peter’s war for supremacy on the Baltic Sea and in northern Europe, taking control of Lithuania and Latvia after the division of Poland in 1772. She then turned her armies against the Ottoman Empire with major victories in Moldavia, Walachia and Crimea. By 1793, Russia controlled all Ukrainian lands east of the Dnieper River, including the seaports of the Crimean Peninsula, thus gaining free navigation on the Black Sea.

Catherine’s grandson Alexander I again expanded Russia’s control in Eastern Europe by successfully defending Moscow from French attack in 1812, leading to Napoleon’s downfall and the award of the duchy of Warsaw. Ottoman influence declined in Serbia in 1817 thanks to Russian intervention as Orthodox Russia came to the aid of its Serbian Orthodox brothers, while at the same time serving its own interests by gaining additional access to ports on the Black Sea. Upon his death in 1825, Alexander I was succeeded by his youngest brother, Nicholas I, who expanded the Russian Empire in the Balkans and in the Middle East. He occupied the Dardanelles Strait ostensibly to protect the Ottoman sultan from Egypt’s Muhammad Ali; however, his primary motive was to establish a Russian protectorate over the entire Ottoman Empire. The Greek struggle for independence ultimately drew Russia into war with Turkey in 1828: Greece achieved its autonomy, as did Serbia. Thereafter, Russia sought greater political influence in the

Balkans and control of the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, with a growing sense of opposition from Great Britain and Austria-Hungary.

Karl Marx was born in Germany in 1818 and became a political philosopher and revolutionist while being educated at the universities of Bonn, Berlin and Jena. He was forced to resign his editorial post in Cologne after his writings that criticized contemporary political and social conditions embroiled him in controversy with German authorities. In 1843, Marx moved to Paris and collaborated with Fredrich Engles in developing the theoretical principles of Communism and in organizing an international working-class movement dedicated to those principles.

Marx was ordered to leave Paris in 1845 because of his revolutionary activities, and settled in Brussels where he began organizing and directing a network of revolutionary committees in a number of European cities. These groups consolidated in 1847 and formed the Communist League that commissioned Marx and Engels to formulate a statement of principles becoming known as the Communist Manifesto. It stated a basic premise that the history of society was a history of struggles between those exploiting and those being exploited: the capitalist ruling class and the oppressed working class. Marx predicted the capitalist class would be overthrown and eliminated by a worldwide working-class revolution and thereafter replaced by a classless society.

Workers in Bohemia, France and Germany began revolutions in 1848, and the Belgian government banished Marx, fearful that the revolutionary tide would engulf it. Marx immigrated first to Paris and then to Cologne where he established and edited a Communist periodical while engaging in organizing activities. These activities led to his arrest in 1849 on a charge of incitement to armed insurrection. Although acquitted, Marx was expelled from Germany, later from France, and then spent the remainder of his life in London.

In 1852, Nicholas I attempted a further extension of Russian influence in the Balkans that led to the Crimean War, pitting Russia against a coalition of Britain, France, Sardinia and Turkey. About the same time, Islamic guerrillas in Chechnya began a bloody war against the Russian army in an effort to break away from Moscow’s mighty grip. Leo Tolstoy, an aspiring writer, joined the Russian army to view warfare up close and watched Chechen towns being burned and Russian soldiers die. He barely escaped death and became a pacifist, leading to his epic novel War and Peace. In later life, he swapped ideas on the futility of armed conflict with a young Indian lawyer, Mohandas Gandhi, who incorporated Tolstoy’s words into his own ethic of nonviolence. Despite the respected insights of these early visionaries, violence continues today in Chechnya and India—still largely based on religious differences.

Nicholas I died a year before the Crimean War ended in 1856, and by the terms of the Treaty of Paris, Russia suffered a major setback as the Black Sea was neutralized and opened to commerce by all nations. Nicholas’ son, Tsar Alexander II—after being forced to relinquish some territory in the area—instituted a series of reforms, including freeing all serfs in his empire in 1861. Alexander II also instituted universal military service, and after selling Alaska to the United States in 1867, he repudiated the neutralization section of the Crimean Treaty in 1870 and extended the Russian Empire into Central Asia while placing a naval force on the

Black Sea. European powers sanctioned this action in 1871 after the defeat of Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War but reaffirmed the right of the Turkish sultan to close the Dardanelles and the Bosporus to Russian war vessels.

In 1875, a general uprising of Balkan peoples occurred against the Ottoman Turkish Empire, arousing widespread sympathy in Russia to support its allies, Serbia and Montenegro. Alexander II declared war on Turkey in January 1877, and a year later, Russian forces advanced on Constantinople. Shortly thereafter, the Treaty of San Stefano granted Russia considerable territory in the Balkans while decreeing the independence of Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, and establishing a large Bulgarian principality under Russia’s influence.

Britain, Germany and Austria-Hungary were particularly opposed to this Russian expansion, and a congress of European powers met in Berlin in June 1878 with German Chancellor Prince Otto von Bismarck presiding. The three emperors, William I of Germany, Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, and Alexander II of Russia, along with other European leaders, met to resolve their differences: the Treaty of Berlin resulted with conditions much less favorable to Russia than from the Treaty of San Stefano. The new treaty reaffirmed the principle that the status of the Ottoman Empire was to be decided by the powers jointly and not unilaterally by any one of them. It also reaffirmed the principle of nationalism for the Balkan peoples. Serbia and Montenegro became independent; Bulgaria was divided into three parts, two under Turkish control; Romania gained its independence, but Russia acquired its southern region and the territories of Batum, Kars and Ardahan; and Bosnia and Herzegovina came under Austria-Hungary. As a result, the Turks lost most of their European territory, Russian influence was reduced in the Middle East, and the powers of Austria-Hungary and Great Britain were increased.

Russia for a time remained at peace with Turkey, but neither they nor the Balkan countries were happy. A Russian revolutionist assassinated Alexander II in 1881, and then his son, Alexander III, instituted rigid censorship and police supervision of intellectual activities. This only intensified the opposition of Russian factory workers who were becoming supporters of the communistic philosophies of Karl Marx. Marx had continued building an international Communist movement in London while writing a number of works regarded as classics of Communist theory: Das Kapital in 1867 and The Civil War in France in 1871. He advocated the abolition of private property to eliminate class exploitation in a world where individuals would contribute according to their abilities and take according to their needs. He contended that class struggle was the primary dynamic in history with the ruling capitalist bourgeoisie seeking ever-greater profit at the expense of the downtrodden proletariat working class. The confrontation between these two classes, Marx felt, would unwittingly set in motion socio-historical forces and heightened class antagonism that would eventually generate a revolution and the defeat of the bourgeoisie. A basic tenant of Communism that Marx advocated was that religion impeded human progress and should be eliminated.

Marx died in 1883, but his doctrines lived on with other socialistic scholars—particularly Vladimir Ilich Lenin who would apply them in formulating a new political system in Russia. Lenin was born in 1870 in central Russia where his father earned the title of a hereditary nobleman by serving the state as director of public education. While 17-year-old Vladimir was finishing school, his older brother was arrested and executed in Saint Petersburg for involvement in a conspiracy to assassinate Tsar Alexander III. Later that year, Vladimir entered Kazan University to study law, but was soon expelled for participating in a student demonstration. He then pursued the study of law as an external student of Saint Petersburg University and began to immerse himself in the radical political literature of the time.

Lenin received his law degree in 1892 and began channeling his ambitions into revolutionary politics. Tsar Nicholas II ascended the Russian throne two years later, and autocracy, oppression and police control increased. Meanwhile, Josef Stalin was an excellent student in Georgia and had just won a scholarship to the T’bilisi Theological Seminary. He was a devout believer in Orthodox Christianity but became exposed to the illegal literature of Karl Marx. Lenin was now leading a group of Marxist activists in Saint Petersburg and began working with the industrial workers of the city. Labor unions were outlawed in Russia, but the Marxists agitated the workers, distributed political literature and attempted to organize strikes to improve working conditions in Russian factories through an organization called the Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. As a result, Lenin and 50 of his cohorts were arrested and imprisoned for 15 months. He was later sentenced to an additional three years of exile in southern Siberia where he wrote The Development of Capitalism in Russia. Lenin attempted to apply the lessons of Marx to the circumstances of Russian society, seeing his country divided between a small wealthy class and a larger impoverished working class—and believing that Russia was ready for a revolution led by the lower class.

As Communism was being given birth in Europe, Karel and Cecilia Novak gave birth to baby Charlie in Nebraska. Bartolomej Chmelka—my great-great-great-grandfather—had married the widow Marianna Novakova in Moravia after his first wife died in 1856, but after he died, Marianna rejoined her Novak family. The Novak name was common in Czech lands, yet it is possible that Charlie’s heritage intersects somewhere with the Chmelkas. Karel Novak was born in Bohemia a few months before my great-great-grandfather Matej Chmelka left for Nebraska in 1871, and was baptized in the Protestant Ceskobratrsky Evanjelicky Church where his grandfather was an ordained minister, and his father, Vaclav, a music teacher. Three years later, Karel left Bohemia with his parents and four brothers and sisters to become homesteaders near Prague, Nebraska. There, the family lived a difficult pioneer life on a 120-acre farm three miles east of the Chmelka homesteads, each practicing a different religion.

Karel Novak met Cecilia Dvorak while attending Presbyterian services in homesteader homes and the two devote Protestants were married on January 6, 1894. The newlyweds lived in a two-room frame house on their farm where Charlie was born on July 14, 1896, the second of nine children. Like his father, Karel loved music and played a cornet in local brass bands, and later a violin in an orchestra. The Novaks had a strong Christian home with rules for behavior, respect and cooperation well laid out by the parents and diligently followed by the children. All shared with chores around the home as the children learned the purpose and value of good work. The nearby homes of Matej and Jan Chmelka were similar, exhibiting the same Czech culture and values, although they were Roman Catholic and generally did not associate with Protestants. Yet, Charlie Novak and my father would become great friends before they died, despite their religious differences.

In 1898, an Italian anarchist assassinated Franz Joseph’s beloved but often estranged wife, Elizabeth, leaving the emperor alone in his Hofburg Palace and his luxurious Schonbrunn summer home in the Vienna suburbs. Franz Joseph was not about to capitulate to the communistic or democratic demands of the working class in his empire. Instead, he decided to enlarge his palace that had gradually expanded from a defense installation built by Bohemian King Ottokar in 1275 … but Franz Joseph’s autocratically ruled empire would not survive in the 20th century. Meanwhile, Josef Stalin was about to graduate from the seminary in 1899, but became disillusioned with his Christian beliefs and gave up his religious vocation to support Lenin’s revolutionary Communist movement against the Russian monarchy.

Vladimir Lenin traveled to Switzerland when his exile ended in 1900, and then settled in Munich, Germany and became one of the principal editors of a Marxist newspaper, the Iskra. He aimed to bring together the Marxists groups scattered throughout Europe and to prepare them for the overthrow of imperial governments rather than spending time working for incremental reforms as favored by many Marxists in Western Europe. Lenin published a pamphlet in 1902 in which he argued that a revolution was needed for the working masses to overthrow the Russian Tsar’s imperial regime, and that the revolution should be led by a party of professionals organized in a disciplined, military-style fashion. His vision for the Russian Marxists became evident in 1903 at the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. The First Congress held in 1898 had ended shortly after it convened when most of its delegates were arrested. Now in 1903, Lenin argued for a tightly organized party limited in number, but actively engaged in organizational work—his faction becoming known as the Bolsheviks who advocated the destruction of capitalism and the establishment of an international socialist state. Later that year, Pierre and Marie Curie and Henri Becquerel were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for their discoveries of radiation and for tracing its source to the heart of the atom. Politics and science were moving forward to an explosive future.

Meanwhile, an expanding Japanese Empire was competing with Russia for control in Manchuria, and Japanese naval forces launched a stunning nighttime attack against the Russian fleet off Port Arthur. This attack began the biggest war to that time in history—the first in which armored battleships, self-propelled torpedoes, land mines, quick-firing artillery and modern machine guns were used. Needing the support of Russian citizens in this war, Tsar Nicholas II permitted a congress to meet in St. Petersburg that led to Socialist demands for reform.

Josef Stalin was arrested for his revolutionary activities and exiled to Siberia in 1903, but escaped. On January 22, 1905, thousands of Russian workers led by a revolutionary priest marched to the Winter Palace to present their demands. They were fired on by imperial troops with hundreds killed, providing the spark for strikes and general unrest over the next ten years, eventually leading to the Communist Russian Revolution with Josef Stalin joining the militant Bolshevik Party led by Lenin.

Budapest’s largest cathedral, St. Stephen Basilica, was finished in 1905 after 50 years of building, and in 1908, Franz Joseph completed remodeling his Hofburg Palace, now having 18 wings, 54 stairways, 19 courtyards and 2,600 rooms. Thanks to his extravagant construction activities and to therapist Sigmund Freud, Franz Joseph seemingly recovered from a state of depression caused by his wife’s death and took the Ottoman possessions he wanted by blatantly annexing the Balkan Slavic states of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Ottoman Empire was in serious decline and it did little to stop the Austrians, but the Turks still denied the Russians what they wanted. The Black Sea was home to the Russian Navy; however, the Turkish sultan controlled the Dardanelles and restricted passage of Russian warships through the Straits of Bosporus—the narrow channel of water that connected the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Austria-Hungary’s unilateral actions regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina angered the Slavs in the region and infuriated the frustrated Russians. Germany was allied with Austria-Hungary, but was unwilling to risk war with Russia; thus, Austria-Hungary became isolated in its Balkan’s policy that developed into a national obsession to minimize Russian power in the region.

CHAPTER 2

EUROPEAN POWERS CONTINUE WORLD COLONIZATION

North and South America were not alone as targets of European colonists with similar efforts continuing in Africa, Asia and Australia after the 13 North American colonies succeeded in their bid for independence. A particularly significant European colonial effort was ongoing in Africa where the civilizations of Egypt and Ethiopia that went back to 5000 BC were among the most ancient on Earth. Egypt conquered Ethiopia in 1500 BC and gained access to gold in an area known as Kush. The Kushites in turn grew strong, invaded Egypt in 725 BC and established themselves as rulers of their former masters until driven out by the Assyrians in 664 BC. Nevertheless, the Kushites of Ethiopia—a Negroid kingdom—remained a major power in Africa into the Christian era as the supply center for gold and precious stones, and the only point of contact between Africa’s interior and the civilizations of the Middle East.

The Romans colonized Egypt in North Africa to serve as the granary of their vast empire. They also conquered Hannibal’s Carthage in North Africa to protect valuable trade routes from the Middle East to Europe. Islamic armies invaded Africa within a decade of Muhammad’s death in AD 632 and quickly overcame Byzantine control of these former Roman colonies. Trade across the Sahara Desert of North Africa became commonplace by the 8th century, with caravan leaders and religious teachers spreading political, religious and societal values to the natives along the trade routes.

A highly organized kingdom existed in the West African rain forest of Nigeria in the 10th century. A 100-mile-long wall and moat were constructed at that time around a Kingdom of the Yoruba—one of three main ethnic groups in present-day Nigeria. A 70-foot-high earthen bank surrounded several towns and villages, now in ruin and hidden in the nearly impenetrable rain forest. This fortification was built by a wealthy, childless widow, Queen Sungbo, as a spiritual monument where locals left offerings for spirits to protect them from outsiders. Muslims still come to her gravesite after Ramadan requesting spiritual favors; however, only men are now allowed.

Crusaders in the Holy Land at the turn of the first millennium discovered the sweet taste of sugar and created a demand for it after returning to Europe. As a result, Italian businessmen established sugar plantations—requiring large numbers of workers—on several Mediterranean islands, and later in West Africa. Over the next 500 years, a huge slave market was created wherein blacks from Africa’s interior were captured and forced to work for their Arab and European masters.

The Mali Empire rose to dominance in West Africa in the 13th century. Its renown spread to the Islamic and European worlds when its king, Mansa Musa, made a pilgrimage in 1324 to the Islamic holy city of Mecca with hundreds of camels laden with gold. Timbuktu was Mali’s primary commercial center with an elaborate court life, but in the 14th century, the region came under domination of the

Kingdom of Songhay. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to show sustained interest in Africa, establishing sugar plantations and a chain of trading settlements along the West African Coast in the late 15th century. The settlement of El Mina was founded in 1482 on Ghana’s Gold Coast, providing a lucrative trade of African gold, ivory, foodstuffs and slaves in exchange for Portuguese ironware, firearms and textiles.

Askia Mohammed became King of Songhay in 1493 and ruled a splendid and well-organized royal court at Timbuktu. With a population of 100,000, this elegant African city had many craftsmen and a market where European cloth was sold. The city’s University of Sankore taught law and the sciences to students from regions throughout the Muslim world, with a library that attracted scholars from medieval Europe. Mohammed formed a professional army and established a bureaucracy that effectively ran an empire stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the sands of the Sahara and to the jungles of interior Africa—a swath of land bigger than all the kingdoms of Europe combined.

The Portuguese first rounded the southern tip of Africa in 1497, largely ignoring South Africa but continuing colonization efforts along Africa’s East Coast. The Ottoman Turks conquered Egypt in 1517 and soon established Muslim control of the entire North African Coast. In 1542, the Portuguese defeated the Muslims in Ethiopia and became dominant across the continent. Soon, African products attracted rival European traders, particularly with the increased demand for slaves in the Americas. Before Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery in 1865, millions of Africans fell victim to this traffic in human lives, most being captured by other Africans and exchanged for consumer goods. Gold and other valuable resources of the Songhay Kingdom were looted by fellow blacks and North African Muslims, and its proud citizens became slaves. Today, the once-splendid city of Timbuktu has a population of only 15,000 residents—among the poorest in the world—who live in rundown buildings threatened by the shifting sands of the encroaching Sahara.

The Dutch began developing South Africa in 1652 as a way station for Dutch trade to the East Indies. Dutch colonists were encouraged to settle around Cape Town, and soon a new culture and people—the Boers or Afrikaners—began to develop. The British also showed greater interest in Africa after its American colonies achieved independence. During the Napoleonic Wars, The Netherlands sided with France, and Britain seized several Dutch possessions, including the Cape Colony in South Africa. This acquisition allowed the British to establish a strong presence in southern Africa with thousands of British colonists arriving after 1820. British efforts to control the East African slave trade led to a treaty in 1822 that prohibited the sale of slaves to subjects of Christian countries. Yet, an active slave trade continued and large numbers of black Africans were seized to work at clove plantations in Zanzibar and were sold at slave markets in the Middle East.

As European private interests grew in Africa, their governments became more involved. The French began the conquest of Algeria and Senegal in the 1830s followed by a general occupation of tropical Africa in the second half of the century. European citizens and administrators penetrated inland and encountered resistance from dominant natives, but were welcomed by subordinated tribes seeking allies or protectors.

Due to intrusions by the British, the Boers in South Africa moved inland in search of better land. Becoming known as Afrikaners, the Boers encountered the Zulu and other Bantu peoples who were expanding southward, setting off a series of wars for land control. The Boers defeated the Zulus in 1840 and established the Republic of Natalia; however, three years later, the British declared the coastal region of Natalia a Crown Colony and annexed it to its Cape Colony. Most Afrikaners left, settling north of the Orange River in the Orange River Sovereignty and north of the Vaal River in the Transvaal region. The British recognized the independence of these territories in the 1850s, with the Transvaal region becoming the South African Republic, and the Orange River Sovereignty, the Orange Free State.

Scientific explorations of the African interior began during this time, particularly in search for the source of the Nile River. One such explorer was Scottish missionary David Livingstone who explored the Zambezi River and discovered and named Victoria Falls in 1855 … and then became famous when he disappeared in 1866. Diamonds were discovered in 1867 in Griqualand West, an area claimed by the South African Republic, and in 1869, the New York Herald hired Anglo-American journalist Sir Henry Morton Stanley to find Livingstone. Stanley located the explorer in present-day Tanzania in November 1871, addressing him with his famous remark: Dr. Livingstone, I presume?

Henry Morton Stanley petitioned the British government to colonize the Congo Basin after he explored it in the 1870s. Receiving no encouragement at home, Stanley approached King Leopold II of Belgium who engaged him to establish trading stations in the Congo as the king’s personal property. Leopold thereafter made a fortune from rubber and ivory on the backs of Congolese slaves, causing Portugal and France to become interested in the region.

Britain also saw a potential for great wealth in Africa and annexed Griqualand West in 1871, and three years later under the new government of Benjamin Disraeli, adopted a more active colonial policy. King Leopold II—with Sir Henry Stanley now as his principal agent—established the International Association of the Congo in 1876 for the exploration and colonization of this large central region. The following year, Britain annexed the nearly bankrupt, politically unstable South African Republic, and then took on an army of 60,000 Zulus. After suffering huge casualties, British troops neutralized their black opponent in 1879 while also occupying Egypt to preserve control of the Suez Canal that had been completed 10 years earlier.

Seemingly in control of South Africa, the British became unresponsive to Afrikaner needs, and a fundamental difference over taxes resulted in a revolution. Surprisingly, the Transvaal Afrikaners defeated the British in 1881, and subsequently established a new South African Republic with Paul Kruger elected president. The intense rivalry of European powers for control in Africa resulted in the Berlin West Africa Conference of 1885 when rules were established for future occupation. This conference provided the first draft of how Europe would carve up the African Continent, with borders having little to do with geography or traditional lands of native groups. The Congo Basin was assigned to Belgium as the Congo Free State. Colonial Belgian rulers then built a network of roads and telephone and electric lines to modernize the area; however, their oppressive treatment of the natives brought about an international outcry.

Vast gold deposits were discovered in southern Transvaal in 1886, resulting in