Although it came out a while ago, I was re-reading it today, and was quite curious how accurate these debunking myths could be. I'm vary wary of just accepting a BBC historian right off the mark, and was hoping someone could come in as a third-party and perhaps debunk, some of his debunking myths.
Here is the article:
Well from the top it seems to be heavily British focused which, granted, is expected from BBC and understandable,, it doesn't speak for the general experience. For instance he talks about how Brits didn't spend often more than a week on the front line trenches. This is true generally, but doesn't apply to everyone. French and Germans during Verdun would spend weeks and at times months on the front lines depending where you were. It was uncommon certainly, and in general most did cycle out, but it was not unheard of to spend an extended period on a front trench if you were in a real hot area.
In terms of #10, "many" is in my opinion a weasel word. I'm polishing off Hot Blood & Cold Steel: Life and Death in the Trenches in the First World War by Andy Simpson which conveniently enough focuses entirely on United Kingdom forces and out of the well over a thousand independent anecdotes I've read in this thing it has been a overwhelmingly negative experience. I go into that more here.
Overall it's an okay list but my gut is telling me it's more focused on being contrarian and getting page views than giving a complete story. These topics are a bit more nuanced than Snow is presenting them. They're not necessarily wrong but I'd just say most of them are incomplete.
What stood out most for me was that the treaty of versailles was not harsh? Germany did not start the war but was forced to take full blame and there is no doubt that the reparations broke her financially after the depression. The treaty sowed the seeds for WW2 and Hitler took advantage of it because it was real and true. It seems to be more contrarian and revisionist than just a simple debunking article.
I'm sort of annoyed at how he poo-poos Anzac's contributions, which were very important to the campaign, with nothing more than a numbers comparison. Well, that's just great. Some Anzac units took almost 100% casualties, but hey, there were more people from the UK.
I am also really annoyed at how the BBC completely ignored the Irish contributions to the landing. The 1st Royal Dublin Fusilliers and the 1st Munster Fusilliers had to be merged they lost so many men, and at the end of the campaign had a single officer and 12 men uninjured out of a starting force of a bit over a thousand.
The Irish were starting their fight for independence at the time, but the BBC just sweeps this all under the rug and throws in the Irish units as counterevidence to the deeds of ANZAC somehow.