Free The Great Fire by Lou Ureneck

thick and uncomfortable on this day. At his desk in his spacious office on the second floor of the embassy, the Italianate mansion atop Pera Hill, he wore a double-breasted blue jacket with gold admiral’s stripes and a star on each arm, a stiff white shirt, and a tie pulled tight to his thick neck. His blue serge trousers touched his polished black shoes when he rose to greet a guest. A British tailor custom-made his uniforms, and they showed an impeccable fit. Hardly an American of any standing passed through Constantinople without climbing the eleven marble steps of the embassy and traversing its high-ceilinged and frescoed halls to call on the admiral. Built by a Genoese trader in the nineteenth century, the mansion with its grand staircase and parquet floors was a fitting address for Bristol. He was the center of American commerce and diplomacy in the region—he gave speeches to the Chamber of Commerce, arranged transportation on his destroyers for American oil executives, and put himself at the center of the city’s network of American relief agencies.
    His first caller on Saturday September 2, 1922, was the manager of the local branch The Guaranty Trust Co., one of America’s largest banks. It was closing its Constantinople office and selling its business to the Anglo-Ionian Bank, a British company with close ties to Greece.
    On hearing the news, Bristol exploded. He had worked for two years to bring an American bank to Constantinople, even leaning on a close friend, Lucian Irving Thomas, a director of the Standard Oil Co. of New York, to open an account and deposit company funds to give the bank a good start, and now he was hearing that it was being sold to the British and Greeks. Bristol was perpetually suspicious of the British, and he despised the Greeks. In Bristol’s mind, Greeks were worse even than Jews and Armenians; they were a race of clever and dishonest merchants.
    American businesses, he huffed at the young and apologetic bank manager, were always quick to ask for the help of the U.S. government,but when the government (in this instance, Bristol) wanted their help, they shrugged their shoulders and showed indifference. Bristol was sure that the British were intent on squeezing the Americans out of commerce in the Near East, and making matters worse, the Ionian Bank had connections to Basil Zaharoff, the notorious Ottoman-Greek arms dealer who had helped finance Greece’s army in Turkey and maintained close relationships with both Lloyd George, the British prime minster, and Eleftherios Venizelos, architect of the Greek presence in Anatolia—both detested by Bristol. The bank was probably a subterfuge for British and Greek imperialism or Zaharoff’s personal designs.
    As Bristol talked, he frequently raised his chin in the manner of a boxer taunting his opponent. An American bank was necessary for American business, he insisted, though the manager was offering no opposition to the admiral’s argument. His temper let loose, Bristol raged on: there was opportunity here in Turkey, and there was money to be made—money for Americans. The young manager lowered his eyes and agreed with the admiral but there was nothing he could do. He had his orders from New York. The bank had not been profitable and it would be closed. He handed Bristol the papers outlining the sale terms, which included a pledge from the Guaranty Trust Co. to promote the Ionian Bank. Bristol was disgusted. Simply disgusted.
    Stern-looking and jowly at fifty-four, with receding hair parted in the middle, Bristol projected military discipline and authority. His barrel chest, dark eyebrows, one of which formed an upside-down “V” like a proofreader’s caret, and a mouth turned down on either side when at rest—all these physical characteristics combined with his piercing dark eyes to give him the aspect of a firm but (in his own way) fair prison warden. He liked to think of himself that way—firm, but fair, a proponent of the