One of the singular advantages of being a Turcologist resident in Washington, D.C. is the proximity thus afforded to the papers of Admiral Mark Lambert Bristol which are housed in the manuscript division of the Library of Congress. Bristol, in the years 1919-1927, served as the Commander of the U.S. Naval Detachment in Turkish waters and as the U.S. High Commissioner to Turkey. In this capacity he witnessed first hand the Turkish War of Independence, the formation of the First Turkish Republic, and the early years of its existence. His papers, consisting of some 33,000 items, include reports, diaries, correspondence, copies of official dispatches, telegrams and appointment sheets. While covering his entire career, they are of particular importance for his tenure in Turkey (1919-1927). In particular, they reveal in great detail the character of political, military, social, and economic conditions in Anatolia during the turbulent period of post World War I history. 

In the course of the past few months I have had the opportunity to systematically study that section of the Bristol Papers dealing with conditions in Anatolia, from the date of his arrival in February of 1919 through February of 1921, i.e., material relating to the first two years of his tenure in Turkey. In this paper I shall limit my analysis of their contents of the following points: First, to sketch a rough portrait of Bristol the man as he emerges in his preserved private correspondence and official papers; and, second, to examine the manner in which his "Papers" have been utilized as a source by scholars working on the question of Turco-Armenian relations in this period. 

The common interpretation of Bristol as "anti-Greek," "anti-Armenian," and "pro-Turkish," which finds all too frequent expression in the works of Armenian scholars, can hardly be sustained by anyone who studies his "Papers." Bristol held no brief for any of the peoples of the Middle East. His attitude vis-a-vis the indigenous inhabitants of the region may best be summed up via a series of comments "typical" of those scattered throughout his voluminous private correspondence: 

Thus, on the Turks, he wrote in a letter to Frank L. Polk dated December 4, 1920: 

"If things go as they are now going I see France and England reestablishing the Turkish rule, at least over some part of this country. I have no use for the Turk, and above all I never want to see the Turkish rule established again. I cannot conceive any worse crime."

While his feelings towards the Greeks and Armenians were conveyed in typical fashion in a letter of May 3, 1920, which he addressed to Dr. Edward C. Moore: 

The so-called Christians in this part of the world are the same as the Moslems. The whole of the old Ottoman Empire is in dire need of modern civilization and Christian development. This applies to all races and religions."

Again and again Bristol reiterates his view that there is little to choose between the various "races" of the region. Typical of the manner in which he stated this belief is the following passage from a letter he wrote to Rear Admiral H. S. Knapp on August 26, 1919: 
"Those who know these people out here best know full well that the Armenians, Greeks and Turks are all tarred with the same brush. It was simply that the Turks had the advantage of the position and full swing to their beastly desires. The massacre of Kurds and Turks by the Armenians during this war when they got their chance, and the things that have been happening in Smyrna and the surrounding districts simply go to show what I have stated above."

Bristol summarized his attitude towards the peoples of Anatolia in a letter of December 27, 1920 to Mr. Walter George Smith, in the following terms: 

"I have often said to you, these races in the Near East are all very much the same, and if you put them all in a bag and shake them up you would not know which one would come out first."

It is this "shake them in a bag" philosophy which typifies Bristol's attitude towards the indigenous peoples of Anatolia. As the selection of quotations given above indicate, only the most committed "anti-Turk" could in any way view his position as "pro-Turkish." Bristol was first and foremost a product of his times. He was an American protestant who knew that his "brand" of civilization alone held some promise for the future of mankind. A final quotation from his correspondence illustrates this point. In his May 3, 1920 letter to Edward C. Moore (quoted above) he wrote: 
I hold no brief for any race in this part of the country. They all need universal education and modern civilization. The future peace of the world depends upon these races getting the benefits of modern development."

Given this view of Bristol, one which emerges from the correspondence he carried out while serving as U.S. High Commissioner in Turkey, how can we account for the all-pervasive view in works of Armenian scholars, of him as "pro-Turkish" and "anti-minority"? One only has to read the works of his predecessor in Istanbul, Ambassador Henry Morgenthau to answer this query. Contrast the "tone" of the following Morgenthau statement with that of the Bristol passages quoated above: 

"Will the Turks be permitted, aye, even encouraged by our cowardice in not striking back, to continue to treat all Christians in their power as "unbelieving dogs?" Or will definite steps be promptly taken to rescue permanently the remnants of these fine, old, civilized Christian peoples from the fangs of the Turk?"

Morgenthau "knew", just as generations of former Christian subjects of the Ottomans "knew", that these "fine, old, civilized Christian peoples were inherently superior to the Turks with their "fangs" who ruled them. In short, Morgenthau was a confirmed "Turcophobe" whose hatred for the Turks was matched only by his unabashed support for the Christian minorities under Ottoman rule. To anyone sharing Morgenthau's prejudices (including the minorities themselves), Bristol's evenhanded objectivity could only be interpreted as "pro-Turkish." His "shake them in a bag" philosophy challenged the minorities self-views of their own superiority. Bristol's insistence on the equality of Christian and Moslem alike, marked a drastic change from Morgenthau's championing of the Christian element. It is this fact which accounts for his being incorrectly labeled as "pro-Turkish" and "anti-minority." 

Turning from our examination of Bristol the man to that of the "Bristol Papers" as a source for our study of events in Anatolia during his tenure as High Commissioner, we must ask the question: To what extent have the contents of the Bristol Papers been utilized by scholars dealing with Turco-Armenian affairs between 1919 and 1921? To answer this query I will focus on one event in this time-frame: the Turkish occupation of the city of Kars on October 30, 1920 and the subsequent fate of the Armenian residents of this north-eastern Anatolian city. 

The approach I have taken is to examine the standard Armenian accounts of this event as recorded in secondary works. The ensuing account is then examined in light of the relevant materials preserved in the "Bristol Papers" with the objective being to determine the extent to which the "Bristol Papers" have been utilized in the writing of the history of this event. 

Typical of the works published in the last decade which include an account of the fall of Kars to the Turkish-Nationalist forces under the command of Kazim Karabekir Pasha, are Christopher J. Walker's Armenia: The Survival of a Nation and Dickran Boyajian's Armenia: The Case for a Forgotten Genocide. Of the two, Walker provides by far the greater detail, quoting at length from Armenian accounts including those of Simon Vratsian (former Prime-Minister of the Armenian Republic), Minister A. Bablian (an eye-witness), and a contemporary report taken from the Baku Armenian-language newspaper, Komunist. These three sources are unanimous in their descriptions of the massacres perpetrated by the Turkish soldiery in the wake of their occupation of Kars. Thus, Vratsian reports: "For three days uninterruptedly the Turks looted, raped and killed, and perpetrated every kind of savagery in the city." In a similar vein, Bablian, in the words of Walker, "describes with terrifying colours the cruelties done by the Turks. The Armenians were subject to slaughter, beautiful women were taken into concubinage, able-bodied men were driven away into the interior of Turkey." Finally, the account in the Komunist newspaper provides the following details: 

"...But the troops which entered the city spared neither women, children nor the aged. For five days these bloodthirsty soldiers and the Kurds perpetrated upon the head of the peaceful population atrocities which were beyond the imagination of man. Armenians alone they killed. Everyone was looted indiscriminately. 
They did not even spare the Communists who presented certificates proving identification. In Kars alone 6,000 Armenians fell victim to Turkish brutality. 

Mass arrests of Armenians followed the terrible massacre. They stripped them from head to foot, and in hundreds they dispatched them to work in Erzurum and Sarikamish. Those sent were struck down by cold and died from hunger and suffering."

Boyajian's comments are limited and consist of two laconic statements: "Soon the fortress of Kars fell" and "Atrocities continued in localities which remained in Turkish hands. It has been reliably reported that in Kars alone more than 10,000 Armenians were killed."

From these two modern secondary accounts the reader is left with the clear impression that the Turkish occupation of Kars was accompanied by widespread looting on the part of the Turkish soldiery, and the massacre of between 6000 - 10,000 Armenian residents of the city. 

Walker and Boyajian's accounts, while supporting one another in terms of content, also share another similarity. This is their failure to utilize any non-Armenian accounts of the fall of Kars and its aftermath. Indeed, the reader whose knowledge of this event derived from these two works would be unaware that there were some twenty American Near East Relief workers resident in Kars on October 30, 1920, or that the commanding General of the Turkish Nationalist forces who conquered the city, Kazim Karabekir, has left a detailed account of the city's occupation in his autobiography. 

As one might expect, Karabekir's account of the fall of Kars centers on the military orders he issued as commander of the Turkish forces prior to its conquest. However, he does provide the following passage relating to the aftermath of its occupation: 

"By late evening [October 30, 1920] the following prisoners had been brought to my headquarters in the Station: 3 generals, 6 colonels, 12 majors, 16 captains, 59 lieutenants, 16 civilian officials, 12 officers and 4 cadets. There were also 1,150 soldiers taken prisoner. The number of confirmed Armenian dead was 1,110. Among the captured supplies were: 337 usable cannons, 339 cannons which needed repair, a large number of machine guns, all kinds of bullets, ammunitions, etc. Among the prisoners wee: Aratof, the Minister of War; Velilov, the Chief of the General Staff; Primof, the Commander of the Kars Fortress, and a civilian officer. 
This victory which I gained by a counter-offensive was a great success; and despite the fact that we destroyed a large part of the enemy army and conquered a modern fortress, we suffered few casualties: 9 dead and 47 wounded. 

In my order to attack Kars, I had stated the following: "The goal of this offensive is to destroy the principal Armenian forces within Kars or to drive them out of Kars." As a matter of fact my soldiers proved that they were a disciplined, powerful, modern army, and that they possessed remarkable humane feelings. Despite the fact that they had successfully attacked a modern fortress such as Kars, they did not commit the slightest harm against the city's civilian Armenian population."

This fact was witnessed by the American delegation resident there, and in a telegram they dispatched to Admiral Bristol on October the 31st, they wrote: 

"All the Americans in Kars are well, and the Turkish Army is full of concern for us and accords us all considerations. We have been given permission to continue our activities as before. The Turkish soldiers are well disciplined and there have been no massacres." 
Edward Fox, District Commander N.E.R. Kars

This American delegation in Kars, which announced to the world the courage and restraint possessed by the Turkish army, and the compassion it expressed towards the Armenian children, had the responsibility of caring for 6,000 poor and orphaned children. 
Karabekir's description of the aftermath of the city's occupation continues with a "Declaration" which he published in Russian, Armenian and Turkish on November 1, 1920. This document entitled "To the Armenian People" guarantees the security of the civilian population who cooperate with the Turkish forces. At the same time it assures the population that anyone apprehended providing protection and shelter to spies and traitors will "immediately be executed in the name of public order." 

The obvious discrepancies between the Walker/Boyajian account and that provided by Kazim Karabekir are illustrative of the type of problem facing the student of Turco-Armenian relations. Graphically conflicting versions of the same events as seen from the perspective of two protagonists. All too often the student of history whose aim is objectivity is forced into choosing one side or the other's uncorroborated version as "fact." 

As regards the fall of Kars we are fortunate in having the testimony of some twenty American "neutrals" who were stationed in the city on October 30, 1920. In the employ of the Near East Relief, these Americans were charged with providing care for several thousand Armenian war orphans in the city. They kept in close contact with Admiral Bristol and his intelligence officers. The reports they provided the Admiral relevant to the fall of Kars and its aftermath, together with copies of his own communications sent to Washington are all preserved in the Library of Congress "Bristol Papers" collection. An examination of this material serves two purposes: a) it provides us with an additional scale against which to weight the conflicting Walker/Boyajian and Karabekir accounts of the city's conquest; and b) it allows us to analyze Richard Hovannisian's oft-repeated charge that Bristol was "a master of manipulation, [who] selected excerpts from reports which would sustain his contentions even in the face of strong counter-evidence." 

The earliest reference by Bristol to the fall of Kars is contained in his "Report of Operations" for the week ending November 7, 1920. He wrote: 

"A telegram was received from Kars, through the Italian military authorities in Anatolia, stating that our Americans were safe and going ahead with their work and not being molested by the Turks; also that there were no massacres, and our relief workers were permitted to take care of the orphans as usual."

Bristol stands outside the U.S. embassy in Istanbul in 1919, with Commander Tisdell

    The original copy of this telegram sent to Bristol by Edward Fox from Kars is also preserved, and its wording is identical to that provided by Kazim Karabekir in his autobiography. 

Two weeks later, on November 15, 1920, the same Edward Fox, Commander of the Near East Relief group in Kars, submitted a 28 point typewritten "Memorandum" on the fall of Kars to Bristol. This, the most detailed of the eye-witness accounts, gives us an hour by hour account of the events of October 30th and thereafter. Fox's first hand observations on the city's conquest include the following in regard to Armenian casualties: 

"By this time the bullets were flying thick and fast. The soldiers [Armenians] from the forts were pouring down into the valley road, and Armenian cavalrymen led their horses at a run down the steep flights of stone steps leaving from the forts. The Turkish soldiers standing on the heights fired at the retreating Armenian troops who took refuge among the women and children on the road, and this resulted in the death of many non-combatants. Considering the jam on the road it is remarkable that many more were not killed. I roughly estimate the dead in the valley to number fifty."

On December 15, 1920, Bristol had a visit from Edward Fox who provided him with additional details on the situation in Kars. In Bristol's "War Diary" for this date the following summary of his conversation with Fox is given: 

"The Turks marched into Kars and the Armenians ran away without firing a shot except from two or three places on the hill in the beginning, and this firing soon ceased. Many of the Armenians threw away their guns, stripped off their uniforms and hid in the houses, especially in the Near East Relief orphanages and hospitals with the children. The Turks were very badly clothed and therefore every Armenian soldier they captured they stripped and took the clothes for themselves. There were no massacres except certain Armenians were killed and this was reported to be for crimes committed."

Bristol's "Report on Operations" for the week of December 15, 1920, contains the first detailed description of the fall of Kars which he forwarded to Washington. A comparison of its text with the Fox reports cited above clearly establishes Bristol's heavy reliance upon the eye-witness descriptions proved to him by the N.E.R. personnel in Kars: 

"...The Turkish forces were far inferior to the Armenians, but the latter put up no fight and ran away in the most cowardly manner. The soldiers threw away their guns, stripped off their equipment, and hid in the hospitals and orphanages belonging to the Near East Relief Committee when the Turks entered Kars. There was hardly a shot fired from the Kars fortifications and there were no troops to withstand the advance of the Turks, who marched in as if on parade. The Armenian soldiers in many cases hid in the beds with sick children. The Turks in their advance into Armenia did not do any massacring, but did, after the occupation of Kars, execute a few Armenians."

Nor were Bristol's sources of information limited to reports submitted to his office by missionaries and near East Rellief personnel. He also had his own Intelligence Officers, one of whom, Robert Steed Dunn, visited Kars early in December of 1920. His observations were written up in a fourteen page typed document entitled "Historical Summary of Military and Other Events" and submitted to the Admiral on December 25, 1920. The section of Dunn's report dealing with the fall of Kars was based on extensive interviews he held with Near East Relief personnel in the city. Among the additional details provided by Dunn, the following are of particular interest, in regard to the aftermath of the conquest. 
"All the Armenians, both civil and military, ran, crowding into the narrow river gorge which runs between the forts, and where the NER headquarters is situated. They robbed and plundered first what they could, NER Armenian workers were as bad at this as anyone, stealing blankets and what else they could from the orphanages. For an hour or so the gorge was a scene of chaos. Armenian soldiers hid under the children's beds in the institutions; the Turks appearing on the heights fired indiscriminately into the crowds in the valley below... 

Just what Armenian generals committed suicide is hard to find out. Mizimanoff certainly did. Piramoff was cut off, surrounded and taken prisoner. There is doubt whether my Saarikamish friend, Merimanoff, committed suicide or was killed. Some of the few officers who did not run shot their men for doing so, when the valley was crowded with military and the entire civil population of the town.... 

The three days looting that followed was not organized, and was done as much by Armenian refugees as by Turkish soldiers. A good deal of NER stuff was taken, but the Turks subjected the Americans to few inconveniences and demands... 

Apparently all the Americans kept their heads and did the right thing; kept their nerve too; and it was owing to their example to the Turks that worse looting and perhaps massacre did not occur... 

It was during Atauf's expedition to Djarjur that Armenian civilians fired on Turkish regulars, and the population of two villages near Hamamlu were massacred. The Turks are quite frank about this, and the Armenians had no convincting comeback..."

The Bristol Papers also contain a copy of a letter from Veronica Harris, a member of the NER staff in Kars, which she sent to the Admiral on February 17, 1921. This communication provides a detailed analysis of the relations between the NER personnel and the Nationalist Turkish forces commanded by Kazim Karabekir Pasha. In regard to the treatment of NER Armenian employees Harris informs Admiral Bristol that: 

"They [the Turks] have arrested about sixty, all told, of our men here, which is about 1/10 of our employees. They have released some thirteen of fourteen of our most necessary employees... We have had much trouble through the Armenians, either from spite or to curry favor with the Turks, informing on their own people and manufacturing the evidence themselves. The Turks have apparently not flagrantly ill-treated the men they take, and so far we have not heard of any executions."

Finally, in Bristol's "War Diary" entry of May 3, 1921, he provides a lengthy report of a conversation he held that day with Mr. G. T. White of the near East Relief Committee, who had recently arrived in Istanbul from Kars. In the words of Bristol, George White, who had been in Kars at the time of the Turkish occupation, had the following to say in regard to claims that the Turkish forces had massacred Armenians in the city:

"When questioned carefully in regard to the treatment of the Armenians by the Turks after they had occupied Kars, Mr. White stated that he did not know of any massacres and did not believe there had been any, except in the case of two villages where some Turkish officers had been killed by the Armenians and in retaliation the Turks had wiped out these villages and, though he was not certain, he had no doubt that people in the villages had been wiped out. 

In one other case he believes that about thirty Armenians were shot in Kars just after the occupation by the Turks. I asked Mr. White what he thought of the statement made by Mr. McCallum of the Near East Relief in a telegram to the United States stating that 80,000 Armenians had been massacred by the Turks. Mr. White did not reply to this question, but at first exclaimed "Yes, I have talked with Mr. McCallum in regard to that." Mr. White had already answered this question by stating that there had been no wholesale massacres by the Turks. There was no doubt in my mind that Mr. White was embarrassed to find such a statement had been telegraphed to the United States."

To return to the queries with which we began this examination of the contents of the Bristol Papers relating to the fall of Kars and the subsequent fate of its civilian Armenian population: specifically, the apparent discrepancies between the "Armenian History" as typified by the Walker/Boyajian accounts, and the "Turkish History" provided by Kazim Karabekir in his autobiography, the testimony preserved in the "Bristol Papers" is noticeably at odds with the Armenian version of the fall of Kars. The testimony of the American eye-witnesses, whom it should be recalled were all members of the Near East Relief, i.e., individuals whose exclusive concern was to alleviate the suffering of Armenians, provides a clear refutation of the charges levelled in the Walker/Boyajian works. To wit, that the Turkish occupation of the city was accompanied by widespread looting on the part of the Turkish soldiery, and the massacre of between 6,000 and 10,000 Armenian residents of the city. The testimony of Fox, Harris, White, et. al. contains no support for the Walker/Boyajian version of events in Kars. 

As regards our second query, namely the Hovannisian portrayal of Bristol as "a master of manipulation", who "selected excerpts from reports which would sustain his contentions even in the face of strong counter-evidence", it too is not supported by a case study of the conquest of Kars. Here we have clearly seen that the reports on these events submitted by Bristol to Washington are fully in keeping with the evidence at his disposal. 

One fact is certain, no serious student can attempt to write the history of the Nationalist Turkish occupation of Kars on October 30, 1920, without fully utilizing the relevant materials preserved in the "Bristol Papers." The "neutral" eyewitness accounts covering both the conquest and the following months simply do not support the contention that between 6,000 and 10,000 Armenians were massacred by the Turks in Kars. 

How then can we account for the fact that those deaths which occurred in the actual fighting, together with some 30 Armenians executed for unspecified crimes after the Turkish occupation of Kars, have been blown up to the proportion of 6,000 massacre victims in Walker's account, 10,000 massacre victims in Boyajian's work, and 80,000 massacre victims in the contemporary telegram sent to the U.S. by Mr. McCallum of the Near East Relief Office in Istanbul? 

Bristol, while a captain, in April 23, 1915; in the Office of The Secretary Of War, during the first meeting of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA. NASA would absorb NACA in 1958.) Captain Bristol (center, back) was Director of Naval Aeronautics, at the time.

     In the case of Walker and Boyajian the answer is simply poor scholarship. Their failure to utilize the materials preserved in the "Bristol Papers" relevant to the fall of Kars (or for any other event they write about in this period), is inexcusable and suggests that their works should be used with extreme caution. 

As for the significance of, and motivation behind, the "McCallum Telegram" we must turn once again to the Bristol Papers. Specifically, to an exchange of letters between Bristol and James Barton, the Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, which took place in the early months of 1921. Bristol writes: 

"I see that reports are being freely circulated in the United States that the Turks massacred thousands of Armenians in the Caucasus. Such reports are repeated so many times it makes my blood boil. The Near East Relief have the reports from Yarrow and our own American people which show absolutely that such Armenian reports are absolutely false. The circulation of such false reports in the United States, without refutation is an outrage and is certainly doing the Armenians more harm than good. I feel that we should discourage the Armenians in this kind of work, not only because it is wrong, but because they are injuring themselves. In addition to the reports from our own American Relief workers that were in Kars and Alexandrople, and reports from men such as Yarrow, I have reports from my own Intelligence Officer and know that the Armenian reports are not true. Is there not something that you and the Near East Relief Committee can do to stop the circulation of such false reports? I was surprised to see that Dr. McCallum sent through a report along this line from Constantinople. When I called attention to the report, it was stated that it came from the Armenians but the telegram did not state this, nor did it state that the Armenian reports were not confirmed by our own reports."

It would appear that McCallum of the Near East Relief Office in Constantinople was either not privy to the reports of his colleagues on the spot in Kars, or alternatively, for reasons of his own, preferred to pass on to the United States unconfirmed Armenian rumors, which, as Bristol indicates, were patent falsehoods. While we may only speculate on his motivation, it seems logical to assume that reports of 80,000 Armenians massacred by the Turks in Kars would be of more use to Near East Relief fund-raising efforts in the United States, than stories of Armenian soldiers fleeing their posts without firing a shot and hiding in the beds of children in the city's hospitals and orphanages. 

Indeed, James Barton's response to Bristol's letter suggests that this may well have been the motivation behind McCallum's "Massacre of 80,000 Armenians Telegram." Barton replies: 

"With reference to the false reports that come through reporting massacres of the Armenians by the Turks. There is no one who can deprecate this more than I do. But there is a situation over here [in the U. S.] which is hard to describe. There is a brilliant young Armenian, a graduate of Yale University, by the name of Cardashian. He is a lawyer, with offices down in Wall Street, I believe. He has organized a committee so-called which has never met and is never consulted, with Mr. Gerard as Chairman. Cardashian is the whole thing. He has set up what he calls an Armenian publicity bureau or something of that kind, and has a letterhead printed. Gerard signs everything that Cardashian writes. He told me this himself one time.... We have had many a conference with Armenian leaders as to what can be done to stop this vicious propaganda carried on by Cardashian. He is constantly reporting atrocities which never occurred and giving endless misinformation with regard to the situation in Armenia and in Turkey. We do not like to come out and attack him in public. This would injure the whole cause we are all trying to serve."

This then was the dilemma faced by those Americans involved in fund-raising efforts on behalf of the Armenian relief work. Even when by their silence they knew they were helping to distort truth, they couldn't say so, because: "This would injure the whole cause we are all trying to serve." Better to let reports of atrocities which never occurred circulate, than to injure the cause!

In summation, I have tried to convey the "tone" of the contents of the "Bristol Papers," and of Bristol the man, via a focused examination of one particular event they cover: the Ottoman occupation of Kars and its aftermath. To the degree that I have succeeded this analysis will have furnished the reader with two clear impressions: 

First, an appreciation for Admiral Mark L. Bristol as a man well in tune with events in Anatolia, who made full utilization of the wide variety of information sources at his disposal. 

Second, an awareness of the potential dangers involved in subscribing to any purported description of events in Anatolia between 1919-1921 which is not based in part on the wealth of material contained in the "Bristol Papers." 

 

Dr. Heath W. Lowry, "American Observers in Anatolia ca. 1920: The Bristol Papers," Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey [1912-1926], Bosphorus University, Istanbul, 1984, pp. 42-58.

 

Hm. Interesting.

In other words, what Professor Marashlian is claiming is that Admiral Bristol had few ethics or morals, as he went about the business of “wiping the spot”... lying through his teeth so that Turkey can look good, to further economic interests.

If this is the case, why does the professor jump on the validity of Bristol’s anti-Turkish statements? If Bristol is such a liar, then nothing Bristol says should be acceptable.

I guess Admiral Bristol is only legitimate when he says something that is harmful to the Turks. Just like the “courageous Turks of decency” are only good human beings when they acknowledge the so-called genocide. Practically the only time you will find Armenians/Greeks saying anything good about Turks or Turkey is if they support anti-Turkish notions. Otherwise, if they should get a pimple on their butts, they’ll know whom to blame: Turkey.

Did Admiral Bristol say these things? I don’t know... the professor didn’t include a source. Assuming, however, that the professor is not... ehhh... “exaggerating,” let us pay heed to the kind of man Admiral Bristol probably was. (I'm going to accept Professor Marashlian's word, because among all the Armenian professors who blindly march to the tune of the "Armenian AND? Anthem," I like Professor Marashlian. He had the guts to journey to an honest forum [in Ankara] debating the Armenian "Genocide," when all the other pro-Armenian professors apparently wimped out.)

 

Bristol with his better half, 1919. The 1919 photos on this page are by Francis Kelsey, from his Near East Expedition, 1919-1920.

     Admiral Bristol grew up in America. All Admiral Bristol knew about Turkey was negative... because then, as is almost equally true now, the only things reported in the American media regarding Turkey were negative. Admiral Bristol had no reason to like Turks. The only time Americans or Westerners grow fond of Turkey — if they are people of integrity and their biases are not too impossibly deep-rooted — is if they go to Turkey, and find out all the horror stories they have been told simply are not true. When this kind of thing happens, when one’s deep-rooted belief system gets shaken, then one can easily do a hundred-and-eighty degree turn. This is why you find Bristol making statements such as the Greeks being the worst race. When you finally learn a people you were trained to look upon as angels actually can behave in ways that are terribly inappropriate, how would you react?

American businessmen have historically gone to bed with all kinds of despotic governments, in order to make a buck. The only reason why Bristol felt the need to put Turkey in a good light was because he was motivated by truth. Professor Marashlian should be careful before suggesting branding people as liars, without offering evidence. This is the traditional Armenian method... to assassinate the character of those who dare not agree with the Armenian viewpoint. However, all the professor has to go on is his opinion. Are there examples from Bristol’s background that support Bristol was a bad man? As far as I know, Admiral Bristol was an exceptional American, and he served his country nobly and valuably. By contrast, there are clues about Ambassador Morgenthau’s character that makes one a fool to trust what he had to say.

Does Professor Marashlian honestly believe American businessmen wouldn’t want to investigate business opportunities in Turkey if no efforts were made to allegedly “wipe the spot”? Then the professor has much to learn about how, in general, American business operates. (I know the professor doesn't believe that, because he makes a statement supporting otherwise in the Ankara forum he attended. If memory serves... I didn't double-check.)

Besides... even if Ambassador Bristol truly engaged in wanting to “wipe the spot,” he would have been aware he wouldn’t have been dealing with a mere spot; what lay before him was the La Brea Tar Pit. No matter how many times Bristol would have lied through his teeth and said, “No, no, Turkey wasn’t so bad”... how many people could he have persuaded? After people had been totally brainwashed by being exposed constantly to a one-sided barrage of anti-Turkish propaganda? The impossibility of such a mission is demonstrated by how solidly established the Armenian viewpoint is today... there is nothing Admiral Bristol could have done, with his little lone voice in the wilderness, to wipe the spot, in the minds of the masses.

Like Doctor Cyrus Hamlin (the first president of Istanbul’s Robert College) wrote about the foreign spreading of anti-Turkish news: this "one-sided and unreliable information" about any people would, after a long period of unchallenged time, “would create hostility and hatred that would not be easily overcome." And as C.W. Dixon-Johnson cited the old Eastern proverb, "Give a lie twenty-four hours start, and it will take a hundred years to overtake it"... They are pretty much saying what Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels swore by years later... repeat a lie (the bigger, the better) often enough, and people will swallow it. I’d think Admiral Bristol had a lot more on his hands than to spend time concocting falsehoods... taking on the impossible task of making a dent in this firmly established and gigantic “spot.”

Let me remind you of the professor’s line: “Adm. Bristol also wrote a lot of false and misleading letters because he--motivated by economic interests--was trying to ‘wipe the spot,’ as he put it, that stained Turkey.” Isn’t that a funny way of trying to “wipe the spot,” by writing a PRIVATE letter? (Marashlian must largely be referring to Bristol’s 1921 letter, the only one I know of that has been easily available, publicly... unless the professor conducted deep research in the Library of Congress, like his academic colleague, Heath Lowry.) Who was Bristol trying to persuade, Dr. James Barton? Bristol didn’t even have to persuade Barton... In Barton’s reply, Barton already had an excellent idea of the dishonesty of the Armenians. (Reverend Barton wasn't always that way... but by 1921, he had begun to see the nature of the Armenians, and was burned by their ingratitude all too often. [Read Barton's reply, in the above link].)

It’s very upsetting that Dr. Marashlian tries to paint the picture of Admiral Bristol’s being such a con man. Thank you for your biased opinion, Professor, but exactly where in Bristol’s 1921 letter did he make a false or misleading statement? On, the contrary, this is a from-the-heart, forthright, extremely fair, extremely objective letter written by a man with obvious integrity. (Click on the link above, reader, and judge for yourself.)

And if Bristol has written "a lot of false and misleading letters" beyond this 1921 letter, I haven't seen any. And I have read a lot of Armenian propaganda attempting to blacken the eye of Admiral Bristol.

The professor writes,"Adm. Bristol's letter--written in 1921--does not disprove that Armenians suffered a genocide, because it refers to the Caucasus in 1920, not to the time and place the great extermination occurred. The central scene of the crime was in the Ottoman Empire; the crucial years were between 1915 and 1918." Yes, that is true. Ambassador Bristol wasn’t directly there, so his views cannot be used to conclusively disprove the so-called genocide that occurred mainly in 1915... exactly in the fashion that Ambassador Morgenthau’s views cannot be used to prove the so-called genocide, since Morgenthau — never having left Istanbul's environs during the "genocide" period, and relying solely on the reports from prejudiced Armenians, missionaries and U.S. consuls — wasn’t directly there, either. (Besides the former attorney’s tendency to bend the facts, as a comparison between his letters/diaries and his ghostwritten book attests.)

What is valuable about the admiral’s reports, gathered by truly NEUTRAL Americans (and not the religious bigots and general Turk-haters like missionaries and the brunt of U.S. consuls like George Horton, all with their personal agendas... mainly the men who worked with Bristol, but there were also the missionary-inclined within the Near East Relief — who were not really neutral, but as neutral as can be expected) is the exposing of Armenian tactics. If the Turks were so inclined to exterminate the Armenians, why would they suddenly have stopped in 1920? (The Bristol Papers that you read about above gives an excellent idea regarding how professionally the Turkish soldiers behaved... confirmed as well by the first Prime Minister of the Independent Armenian Republic, in 1923's Manifesto of Hovhannes Katchaznouni.) Why is it that Bristol found time and again, if anyone was committing crimes, it was the Armenians? If this is the way it was in 1920, it reveals volumes about the nature of the Armenians a few years earlier. People simply do not change their "nature" in the blink of an eye.

Now let’s take the alleged statement of Admiral Bristol, made in 1924. He seems to have summed up the villainy of the Turks in one pat statement, just like Aram Andonian demonstrated Talat Pasha’s culpability in one of several all-explaining forged sentences, that Andonian put into Talat Pasha's' mouth. I’m not saying the professor is making this up, although I wish he would have provided the source... I’d like to find out more, and if Bristol actually said this, I’d like to learn what the context of his statement was.

I can more easily understand why Bristol would have made the other statement, back in 1919, to a Turkish reporter: "The massacres of the Armenians have made a spot which is difficult to eradicate. You ought not to have done such things, yes, you ought not to have done it." (Looks like this is at least one place where the “wiping the spot” business is from.) I don’t know how the professor has concluded the statement proves Bristol himself was personally interested in "wiping the spot." If Bristol made this statement, for which — unfortunately — there is no source, then Bristol could have only been chastising the Turks, offering his opinion that it would take a lot for the Turks to get themselves out of the hole they had dug themselves in.)

Back in 1919, Bristol knew only what he was told... it would be safe to presume Bristol was very much influenced by the anti-Turkish propaganda his fellow Americans were also massively exposed to. Despite what the Armenians and Greeks enjoy claiming, Bristol was not "pro-Turkish"... why would he be, when positive things about the Turks were almost never to be found? As a man of integrity, truth was important to him, and he was interested in sorting out the facts from the lies. In time, he would learn more. In the meantime, however, he was still constantly exposed to reports from his fellow Americans that the Turks were in league with the devil. Take a look at this New York Times report about one of the typically deranged missionaries at the time, making up the kinds of stories that would have made Torquemada orgasmic; the article states in the last paragraph that Bristol received this missionary, at the embassy. The U.S. embassy was a focal point for Americans in the faraway land of Turkey, and no doubt Bristol received lots of fellow countrymen like the missionary, many of whom were anything BUT "pro-Turkish," and no doubt filling the ambassador's head with stories of atrocities they had heard from their beloved Armenians. If you kept hearing such horror stories all the time, how could you not be influenced? When I read these disgusting stories, my own eyes glaze over and even I get influenced.) Admiral Bristol deserves credit for rising above the dishonesty... something that could not be said about his ambassador predecessors, who didn’t care about the facts.

And this is the only justification I could think of as to why Bristol made such a pat statement in 1924. Regardless of all the evidence he came up with that exposed the lies of the Armenians and Greeks that "made (his) blood boil," perhaps repeated exposure to horror story after horror story combined with his likely initial negative feelings toward Turks almost all Americans have... since first impressions can run deeply... just couldn't allow him to let go of the Turks' perceived culpability. Or perhaps Professor Marashlian's implication is correct.... perhaps Ambassador Bristol was not the man of integrity I give him credit for. However, I would find it hard to believe a man who wrote the honest and sincere letter Bristol wrote to Dr. Barton would be nothing less than a man of integrity. Even one of the most VICIOUS Turcophobes of the period vouched for Bristol's honesty. (Bottom of page.)

Rear Admiral Mark L. Bristol (far left), in a meeting at the Navy Department, Washington, D.C., 1932.

     Regardless, the one thing that seriously turned me off about  Professor Marashlian’s letter, and one that significantly reveals his shortcomings as an objective scholar, was his choice of word to describe Ambassador Morgenthau’s testimony: “UNIMPEACHABLE.”

Professor Marashlian claimed in his journey to the Ankara forum that he did not hate Turks. We can see now that Professor Marashlian, unfortunately, may not have been honest with this statement. The only clearly "unimpeachable" thing about Henry "Holier-than-Thou" Morgenthau was his unbridled racist hatred of Turks (one particular example among many is Chapter XXII of Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, "The Turk Reverts to Ancestral Type"). If Dr. Marashlian uses such an absolute word as "unimpeachable" to sum up Morgenthau's integrity, then Dr. Marashlian obviously must agree 100% with Morgenthau. It is like saying one doesn't hate Jews, but one agrees 100% with the racist ideologies behind Mein Kampf.

The 1924 letter is the only doubt I now have regarding Bristol's good character; however, if any impartial scholar examines Ambassador Morgenthau's writings, particularly the next-to-last few chapters of his book, he or she will immediately become aware of the racist bias of the author. Let me demonstrate, from "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story":

A common practice was to place the prisoner in a room, with two Turks stationed at each end and each side. The examination would then begin with the bastinado. This is a form of torture not uncommon in the Orient; it consists of beating the soles of the feet with a thin rod. At first the pain is not marked; but as the process goes slowly on, it develops into the most terrible agony, the feet swell and burst, and not infrequently, after being submitted to this treatment, they have to be amputated. The gendarmes would bastinado their Armenian victim until he fainted; they would then revive him by sprinkling water on his face and begin again. If this did not succeed in bringing their victim to terms, they had numerous other methods of persuasion. They would pull out his eyebrows and beard almost hair by hair; they would extract his finger nails and toe nails; they would apply red-hot irons to his breast, tear off his flesh with red-hot pincers, and then pour boiled butter into the wounds. In some cases the gendarmes would nail hands and feet to pieces of wood---evidently in imitation of the Crucifixion, and then, while the sufferer writhed in his agony, they would cry: " Now let your Christ come and help you!

My only reason for relating such dreadful things as this is that, without the details, the English-speaking public cannot understand precisely what this nation is which we call Turkey. I have by no means told the most terrible details, for a complete narration of the sadistic orgies of which these Armenian men and women were the victims can never be printed in an American publication . Whatever crimes the most perverted instincts of the human mind can devise, and whatever refinements of persecution and injustice the most debased imagination can conceive, became the daily misfortunes of this devoted people.

If this nation which we call Turkey was so evil, no Western traveller of the period could have said any of the loving and sometimes awed words that one can read about in some of these quotes.

Now I am well aware Morgenthau's are exactly the kinds of musical words extremist Greeks and Armenians can engorge themselves on, thanks to their near-pathological hatred of Turks... and this is why they worship men like Morgenthau and fellow maniacal Turcophobe, U.S. Consul George Horton. However, anyone who reads these words (and Morgenthau made a practice of preparing similarly vicious essays, as the one I reproduced on his page) must conclude this man did not maintain a cool, rational head regarding Turks and Turkey. What is his proof for all this reported hearsay? The described torture scene which he actually calls "common"? Is his proof that an Armenian or missionary told him so? We know he didn't venture out of Istanbul, so he had to hear such stories from someone. Why would he accept such unimaginable scenes as the unadulterated, COMMON truth? Was he that naive? He was anything but naive, it seems to me.

The Spanish Inquisition's Torquemada—he would have been proud of the torture methods the missionaries came up with.

I made a decision to not include these vicious stories on this TAT web site, of which there are boundless examples of in Armenian sites. I mainly prepared the one page I have already directed your attention to (six or seven paragraphs) above as an example... a New York Times report accepting wholesale the words of a missionary. Look at the similarities... red hot irons; finger and toenails pulled out; beards ripped off. Was there a special torture school in the Ottoman Empire where all graduates learned the exact same techniques? No, what's happening here is Armenians/missionaries made up these ridiculously unbelievable horror stories. "Whatever crimes the most perverted instincts of the human mind can devise, and whatever refinements of persecution and injustice the most debased imagination can conceive" were not the doing of the Turks... although whoever cooked up these shocking terror techniques no doubt possessed pretty perverted and debased imaginations, which especially repressed religious minds have a way of concocting... if anyone remembers the Spanish Inquisition, and the unimaginable tortures the priests had inflicted on the people.

There are other examples Dr. Lowry exposed (in "The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau's Story"), by a thorough comparison between the ambassador's letters/diary and his ghostwritten book, that this man was far from the ultimate when it came to preserving good ethical or moral character. Accounts deviate; he plugs a financial institution he was on the directorial board of ; he goes out of his way to paint Enver and Talat and Djemal and almost every other Turk as monsters or less-than-human, despite mainly reporting  how kindly they had all treated him. (In his book; in his letters/diary, he hardly gave any indication of monstrousness.) For example, Enver is so very sweet with the ambassador throughout... and the ambassador gives Enver credit here and there, saying how Enver always kept his promises, and the like... and then, BOOM. "The European polish which Enver had sedulously acquired dropped like a mask; I now saw him for what he really was---a savage, bloodthirsty Turk."

I read Morgenthau's book at the beginnings of my preparation for this site months ago.... and I reread it again, just last night. (This is why I'm harping on Henry, when this page is devoted to Bristol... sorry.) However, my respect for Henry Morgenthau has dropped to zero. Not only because he is unfairly and falsely saying awful things about Turkey... but because I'm getting a clearer picture as to what kind of man he really was. To write such a book, a book he knew his ignorant fellow Americans would accept as the gospel truth, when he was clearly motivated not by the truth but mainly by his own unbridled racism (along with other factors)... is an indicator of a fiend. A man in his high position should have been a lot more responsible. He was free to criticize the Turks... but he had no right to go into fairy tale land.

To give Morgenthau the benefit of a doubt, he may not have been the racist he so blatantly comes across as; as his letters and diaries demonstrate, he was an altogether different man than the egomaniacal bigot he comes across as in his ghostwritten book. He enjoyed the friendliest of relations with Talat and Enver Pasha, despite painting them as the evil monsters he does. His objective was to get America into the war, and therefore his talented ghostwriter (Pulitzer Prize winning Burton J. Hendrick) wrote an entertaining but fictionalized book. The immoral outcome: people are still regarding the book as fact, and the book is still feeding into the hatreds of the Armenians with its outright lies.

So if Professor Marashlian has so much respect for this unethical lawyer-turned-ambassador, and to accept 100% whatever Henry "Holier-than-Thou" Morgenthau said as "unimpeachable"... is he, like his mentor Professor Hovannisian, so clouded by his emotions that he either cannot sort fact from fiction, or is he cognizant of the fiction and chooses to overlook it? In either case, what does that say about these men's professorial qualifications?

 

ADDENDUM: Subsequently, I discovered a key motivation of Morgenthau came with his marriage to the cause of Zionism. The goal of a Zionist at the time was to strive for a Jewish homeland. Knock out the Ottoman Empire (in control of Palestine) sooner by cajoling the USA into war, and we can understand how Morgenthau lent himself more easily to the Turk-demonization campaign.

 

 

TIME Magazine, Sep. 14, 1925

What is it to be famous? If not one American in a hundred could pick out Rear Admiral Mark Lambert Bristol from among all the U. S. Rear Admirals, active and retired, standing in a row—surely then Rear Admiral Mark Lambert Bristol is not famous.

Last week he returned from seven years in the service of his country overseas. There was no mention of the fact in Detroit, in Kansas City, in Omaha, in New Orleans—no mention even in Philadelphia, a bare 100 miles from Manhattan's midriff, where he disembarked. He is not, like Andrew Mellon or Rodolfo Valentino, a newspaper character.

Yet he is not unknown. The Washington hostess will fill her house when she asks her friends to meet Admiral and Mrs. Bristol. The financier will forego the last golf of summer to talk out a cigar with the Admiral, privately. The heads of great churches will solicit conferences. And each of Admiral Bristol's public utterances in this country will be cabled to every chancellor of Europe.

Admiral Bristol—High Commissioner of the U. S. at Constantinople since August, 1919—has probably exerted more influence upon the scenes of ancient civilization than has any other American. No U. S. official is more highly respected by the statesmen of Europe and the Near East, and certainly none is better known.

When Constantinople was under Allied control, the English were perpetually in a row with the French, the French with the Italians, the Italians with the defeated Turks. When the rows became serious Admiral Bristol settled them.

When the New Turks became lusty, Admiral Bristol (without instruction from the U. S. State Department) told them to quit massacring Armenians. They quit. With similar effect he told the Greeks to control themselves at the sight of a Turk.

Thousands of women and children deluded into peril by the White hope of General Wrangel, he succored. His was the first balm to heal the wounds of fire at Smyrna. Grimly he protected U. S. interests at Lausanne conferences. And last year he was the first diplomat to call on Mustafa Kemal, President of New Turkey.

For seven years he has sat serenely on the international powder box. A snapping-jawed, tight-lipped man, he has scared away the rascals. A jovial good fellow with pockets full of laughs, he has out-joked the wily villain. A great seaman, he has understood the fighting man.

Home again, he began at once on his first objective—to obtain U.S. recognition for Turkey. At the dock, he greeted reporters with a compactly-worded statement, as it were, announcing his text to Secretary of State Kellogg, Foreign Relations Chairman Borah and the rest of the U. S. Senate:

"The new regime in Turkey is a most remarkable evidence of a revolution in form and administration of a government. Briefly, an absolute monarchy has been replaced by a republic. Church has been separated from state and religion eliminated from all law codes. Religion of any kind may be taught in the churches and the mosques, but not in the schools. All persons born in Turkey, without regard to race, religion or nationality, have all rights of Turkish citizenship. The Turkish leaders without previous experience must evolve the new administration. There are bound to be mistakes and the evolution will be slow, but there are many evidences of progress.

"The Americans in Turkey who are engaged in business, in operating schools, in rendering relief to suffering humanity, and in philanthropic and missionary work, are desirous of having the treaty between America and Turkey ratified, and regular diplomatic relations re-established."

=======================

I don't know what the evidence was for the "Stop massacring Armenians" claim... but if it's true, Armenians owe Mark Bristol a great debt of gratitude for saving so many Armenian lives. Strange that a "pro-Turk" would care about Armenians, isn't it?

(Another curiosity is that since Armenian propaganda tells us it is the genetic predisposition of the Terrible Turk to massacre... a notion that this TIME reporter is likely basing his claim upon... isn't it odd that massacres would have magically stopped because an American simply said, "don't do it"?

But the part that grabbed my attention was yet another confirmation of what a "great guy" Admiral Mark Bristol must have been... along with being so very capable, quite a feat in these very treacherous waters:

For seven years he has sat serenely on the international powder box. A snapping-jawed, tight-lipped man, he has scared away the rascals. A jovial good fellow with pockets full of laughs, he has out-joked the wily villain.

The article tells us he earned the respect of everyone, and he did what he did without seeking recognition (unlike the publicity hound, Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, whose good friend was Adolph Ochs, publisher of the New York Times). The mark of a true hero, a man reeking of integrity.

Pro-Armenians who keep smearing Mark Bristol's name, especially if they are Americans,  should be terribly ashamed of themselves.

 

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A Register of Mark Bristol's Papers in the Library of Congress