Collins has been rated number two in an online poll conducted by the National Army Museum in London. The question? Who was Britain's greatest ever military opponent.
Collins was shaded out of the number one position by Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who stopped the allies in the Dardanelles campaign in 1915, a battle fought over months and during which thousands of Irishmen died. The difference in the polling results between Collins and Ataturk was just a few hundred votes.
Collins, however, ranked ahead of the likes of historical titans Napoleon, Erwin Rommel, and George Washington.
the Cork man was a master of guerrilla warfare and a lot more than just a thorn in the side of the British military and intelligence apparatus during the war for Irish independence.
Even though he was for a time the most wanted man in the British Empire, Collins was known to cycle around Dublin on a bicycle, potentially in plain sight of those who were hunting him.
