The National Army Museum in London is currently running an online poll to try and find Britain’s greatest foe and Michael Collins looks to be a hot favourite.
Michael Collins was the commander of the Irish Republican Army during the country’s War of Independence (1919-1922). Now it seems as though he is one of the hot favourites to be named as Britain’s greatest foe in an online poll being carried out by the National Army Museum (NAM), London.
Other ‘great foes’ that feature on the 20-man list include Erwin Rommel (World War 2), George Washington and Andrew Jackson (both fought Britain during the American War of Independence).
So what do you, the men of Ireland, think about this? Would you agree that Michael Collins, who currently sits in second place on the poll, was the biggest pain in the arse that the Brits ever had to deal with? Or would the Nazi commander Rommel be more fitting for the position?
The NAM gives a pretty detailed account of Collins’ life stating that “[Collins] made much of Ireland ungovernable with an army that never exceeded more than 3,000 active volunteers at any given time.”
The only person to sit above Collins on the NAM poll is Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a Turkish general who defied the Allies during World War One.
However, the NAM site states that some votes for Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had to be discounted over the weekend as they were “generated artificially and were therefore not within the spirit of the competition”.
So is Collins officially Britain’s ‘greatest’ foe? Voting continues until March 30 so we’ll just have to wait until then to find out the results. However, you can tell us what you think now.
The aim of the poll is to highlight the achievements of Britain’s most celebrated enemies, but also to draw attention to some of their lesser-known adversaries. You can check out the latest on the poll here.
