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.

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 tye 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 formatoin 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:

While his feelings towards the Greeks and Armenians wer conveyed in typical fashion in a letter of May 3, 1920, which he addressed to Dr. Edward C. Moore: Again and again Ristol 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: 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: 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: 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: 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, uoting at length from Armenian accounts incuding 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 terrigying 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 acocunt in the Komunist newspaper provides the following details:

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 hwo 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 centeres 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:

This fact was witnessed by the American delegation resident there, and in a telegram they dispatched to Admiral Bristol on October the 31 st, they wrote: 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 occupatoin 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 discrepencies between the Walker/Boyajian account and that provided by Kazim Karabekir are illutrative 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 regardes 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 acocunts of the city's conquest; and b) it allows us to analyze Richard Hovannisian's oft-repeated charge that Bristol was "a master of manipulatoin, [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:

The original copy of this telegram sent to Bristol by Edward Fox from Kars is also prserved, 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:

On December 15, 1920, Bristol had a visit from Edwarad 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: 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: 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 Officeres, one ofwhom, 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. 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 NE 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: 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, haad the following to say in regard to claims that the Turkish forces had massacred Armenians in the city: 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 portrayl 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 thise 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 occupatoin 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?

In the case of Walker and Boyajian the answer is simpy 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:

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 subscribint to any purported description of events in Anatolia between 1919-1921 whic is not based in part on the wealth of material contained in the "Bristol Papers."