Mark Lambert Bristol

Background

Mark Lambert Bristol was born on April 17, 1868 in Glassboro, New Jersey, the son of Mark Lambert Bristol, a farmer, and Rachel Elizabeth (Bush) Bristol.

Education

Mark Bristol graduated from the Naval Academy in 1887 and was in the Texas at the battle of Santiago during the Spanish-American War.

Career

Progressing through the grades of the navy, Bristol specialized in ordnance. In 1913 he became a captain and was named director of naval aeronautics. In 1916 he assumed command of the armored cruiser North Carolina. In World War I his ship escorted transatlantic convoys until January 1918, when he was shifted to the battleship Oklahoma in the war zone.

Promoted to temporary rear admiral in July, he moved to the United States Naval Base at Plymouth, England. In December he had additional duty as United States naval member of the Belgian Armistice Commission. In January 1919, in response to a request from the State Department for a high-ranking officer and naval vessels to be stationed in the Near East to protect American interests, Admiral Bristol was ordered to Constantinople.

The Ottoman Empire was then prostrate, in chaos, and about to be partitioned by the European Allies as agreed secretly among themselves. The Empire had severed diplomatic relations with the United States in April 1917, and American affairs were being handled by the Swedish legation, but the Admiral found that he could accomplish more by personal contact with Turkish officials.

In August 1919, to clear his status and to give him diplomatic rank, he was appointed high commissioner, a title he retained until 1927. Affable and fluent, he was always available to help all Americans in the region. He stationed ships in outlying Turkish and Black Sea ports to provide the only transportation, mail, and radio services available to American officials, missionaries, and business men.

One of the first to recognize the significance of the Turkish Nationalist movement of Mustapha Kemal, Bristol warned the State Department as early as September 1920 that the Nationalists had the support of the vast majority of Turks. His policies, in turn, gained him the respect and confidence of the Nationalists. When the Lausanne Conference met, in November 1922, to negotiate a new peace treaty between the Allies and Turkey (the Nationalists having refused to accept the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres), Bristol was one of the three American "observers" present.

He was considered pro-Turkish by the Allied representatives, however, and did not return when the conference reconvened in April. In addition to a general settlement, a treaty restoring normal diplomatic relations between the United States and Turkey was concluded at Lausanne. It was opposed, however, in the Senate on the ground that the Kemal regime was allied with Russia. Becoming a political issue in the 1924 presidential campaign, the treaty was finally rejected in January 1927. Meanwhile Bristol continued to represent the United States in Turkey, conducting affairs on a near-normal basis. Formal diplomatic relations were ultimately resumed by an exchange of notes, and Bristol returned home in May 1927.

His successful diplomatic mission in was widely commended. Shortly after returning from Turkey, Bristol was named commander-in-chief, United States Asiatic Fleet, with the rank of admiral, in which post he served the normal term of two years. Although China was then undergoing a nationalist revolution somewhat akin to that in Turkey, Bristol did not repeat his earlier success.

Following duty on the navy's General Board in his permanent rank of rear admiral, he retired on May 1, 1932, and lived in Washington. He died in the Naval Hospital there from an acute cardiac failure three weeks after an operation and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Achievements

• Mark Lambert Bristol's naval career started to rise when he was promoted to temporary rear admiral and after he moved to the United States Naval Base at Plymouth, England. He was fulfilling the request coming from the State Department for a high-ranking officer and naval vessels to be stationed in the Near East to protect American interests, so Bristol was ordered to Constantinople. Even though The Turkish Empire at that time had severed diplomatic relations with the United States, Admiral Bristol decided to accomplish more by personal contact with Turkish officials. Therefore, in order to provide him with diplomatic rank, he was appointed high commissioner in 1919, a title he was able to retain until 1927. Affable and fluent, he was always available to help all Americans in the region. He stationed ships in outlying Turkish and Black Sea ports to provide the only transportation, mail, and radio services available to American officials, missionaries, and business men. Through this network he assisted materially in such humane activities as the distribution of American relief supplies to starving Armenian and other minority groups in Asiatic Turkey in 1919 and 1920; in evacuating Americans and others from Russian Black Sea ports just before the defeat of the White Russians late in 1920; in distributing relief supplies to starving Russians in 1921 and 1922; and in evacuating refugees from Smyrna following the great fire of September 13, 1922. He also helped found the American Hospital in Nisantasi, Istanbul in 1920, as well as the annexed nursing school which is named after him to this day (Admiral Bristol Nursing School). Afterall, Bristol's diplomatic endeavours greatly contributed to the restoration of normal diplomatic relations between the United States and Turkey. His successful diplomatic mission in was widely commended, and shortly after returning from Turkey, Bristol was promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral and assumed command of the Asiatic Fleet in 1927. Bristol successfully served as chairman of the General Board of the United States Navy from 1930 until 1932. There were two destroyers that were named for Admiral Bristol, the first of which was lost in action with a German submarine off Salerno, Italy, in October 1943.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Modern Turkey: A Politico-Economic Interpretation, 1908-1923

    (Additional Contributors Include Haim Nahoum, Harver Porte...)

Connections

On June 1, 1908, Mark Bristol had married Helen Beverly Moore of Mobile, Alabama. They had no children.

Father:

Mark Lambert Bristol

farmer

Mother:

Rachel Elizabeth (Bush) Bristol

Wife:

Helen Moore Bristol

1867–1945

References

• The Republic of Armenia, Vol. I: The First Year, 1918-1919 (Near Eastern Center, UCLA)
• Smyrna, September 1922: One American's Mission to Rescue Victims of the 20th Century's First Genocide
• Richard G. Hovannisian on Lieutenant Robert Steed Dunn: A review note