Stephen Bonsal (March 29, 1865 – June 8, 1951) was an American journalist, war correspondent, author, diplomat, and translator, who won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for History.

Early life

Bonsal was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1865. He was educated at St. Paul's School (Concord, New Hampshire), St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He continued his studies in Heidelberg, Bonn, and Vienna. He married Henrietta Fairfax Morris in March 1900.Leonard, John William et al. (1906). "Bonsal, Stephen" in Bonsal traveled extensively. He claimed that he had visited all the countries of Europe, Asia (with the exception of Persia), and South America.

Journalist

Bonsal was later a special correspondent of the ''New York Herald'' (1885–1907), reporting the development of military conflicts including: * Serbo-Bulgarian War, 1885 * Macedonian uprising, 1890 * First Sino-Japanese War, 1895 * Cuban War of Independence, Cuban insurrection, 1897 * Spanish–American War, 1898 * Boxer Rebellion, Chinese relief expedition, 1900 * Philippine–American War, Samar, Batangas, Mindanao, 1901 * Venezuela, Matas rebellion, blockage, 1903 * Russo-Japanese War, 1904–1905 He was a foreign correspondent for the ''New York Times'' in 1910–1911.

Diplomat

In 1891-1896, Bonsal served as secretary and chargé-d'affaire of the US diplomatic missions in Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo. He also served for a short time at the U.S. embassy in Madrid.

World War I

During World War I, Bonsal served in the American Expeditionary Forces with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Afterwards, he was President of the United States, President Woodrow Wilson's private translator during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, 1919, Peace Conference in Paris.

Later life

''Unfinished Business'' (1944), a diary describing his experiences during the Paris Peace Treaty negotiations and all the Allied infighting and waxing lyrical about the plight of the wounded veterans and their families, won him the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for History. "No one else has presented the plight of the plain people of Europe, in relation to the strained secrecy of the Conference, and few have written of their agony as does Colonel Bonsal in terms so hardheaded and so poignant" (Time (magazine), Time Magazine). His second son, Philip Bonsal, was a career diplomat. Another son, Dudley Baldwin Bonsal, Dudley Bonsal was a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Selected works

*''Morocco as It Is'' (1894, W. H. Allen, London) *''The Real Condition of Cuba Today'' (1897, Harper, New York, NY) *''The Fight for Santiago'' (1899, Doubleday & McClure, New York, NY) *''The Golden Horseshoe'' (1906, Macmillan, New York, NY) *''The American Mediterranean'' (1912, Moffat and Yard, New York, NY) *''Edward Fitzgerald Beale: A Pioneer in the Path of Empire, 1823–1903'' (1912, Putnam, New York, NY) *''Heyday in a Vanished World'' (1937, Norton, New York, NY) (autobiography) *''Unfinished Business'' (1944, Doubleday, New York, NY) (1945 Pulitzer Prize for History) *''When the French Were Here'' (1945, Doubleday, New York, NY) *''Suitors and Supplicants'' (1946, Prentice-Hall, New York, NY) *''The Cause of Liberty'' (1947, M. Joseph, London)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonsal, Stephen 1865 births 1951 deaths Morris family (Morrisania and New Jersey) American diplomats American newspaper reporters and correspondents American political writers Writers from Baltimore United States Army personnel of World War I Pulitzer Prize for History winners War correspondents of the Russo-Japanese War War correspondents of the Balkan Wars American war correspondents 20th-century American translators American male essayists 20th-century American essayists 20th-century male writers 20th-century American male writers Historians from Maryland