Brits Vote for Washington as Greatest Enemy

For our part, side ways sort of, do we forgive Benedict Arnold?

Shows how Britain is, sadly, a hollow shell of its past when we see this sort of thing. Fortunately, there is still a minority of people there who still remember the great days of “Rule Brittanica”, and hopefully will pull them out of the mire that is engulfing them.
Of that list, Washington, Collins and Ataturk were fighting on their own land, in defense of it, or attempting to expel an aggressor – which Brittain was in those cases.
Bonaparte and Rommell were agressors against England, and I suspect Bonaparte was the worst of the two.
Had they said Hitler instead of Rommel, then he would have surpassed Bonaparte.

In my mind, Washington’s personal qualities set him head and shoulders above the others.

His greatness was in his possession (in spades!) of all the human virtues. He was not a military genius nor a conqueror, a la Alexander or Atla.

The image of Washington praying at Valley Forge. Read the history of the War of Independence and I think one must conclude that the Divine Assistance always was with the Continental Army and Congress.

Supposedly, King George said, “Washington was the greatest man of his time.” when he was informed that Washington refused a crown.

Michael Collin did not live long enough. The other nominees’ personal attributes pale in comparison to the Father of our Country. Yes, I am a “little” prejudiced.

Don, it’s ironic that Collins was more respected by the British than he was by many of his own countrymen. Having worked in England he had no animosity towards the English and had none of the religious bigotry which sadly still exists in the North. The point I was making was that what Collins settled for in 1921 was effectively what would have happened anyway (by 1914 the HR Bill had passed both houses of Parliament and the Unionists knew that the best they could hope for was an opt-out for Ulster protestants). In British political circles it was expected that partition would not last and that the six counties would merge with the rest of Ireland sooner rather than later.

This point was not lost on the Ulster Unionists who with an eye on the demographic situation in the six counties, and ever-fearful of a sell-out by Westminster, spent the next fifty years entrenching their position by effectively treating the Catholics as second-class citizens. The hands-off approach of successive British governments (who after all had a duty to ensure that all citizens were treated fairly) unravelled in 1968. Even then, it was nearly four years before direct rule was imposed, by which time NI had descended into a vortex of terrorism and counter-terrorism, the main driving force for which was a newly resurgent IRA. This delayed the inevitable political settlement for over a quarter of a century.

As, Don, I think it has been. I have on my bookshelf biographies of Collins and Dev by Tim Pat Coogan which I think are well-reseached and balanced. When Collins negotiated the treaty in 1921 he knew better than anyone that he was in no position to resume military operations against the British, although he soon had to undertake operations against the anti-treaty faction in Ireland – and it should be remembered that the ‘civil war’ claimed more lives than the so-called ‘war of independence’.

Fast-forward seventy years. Gerry Adams, who had imbibed Irish republicanism and irredentism with his mother’s milk (but was as much a politician as a terrorist) realized that the ‘armed struggle’ was not only futile but counter-productive, and worked for a political settlement. He was the only man who could bring the Army Council round, and the stark truth was that PIRA had shot its bolt; riddled with informers, compromised by an increasingly sophisticated intelligence apparatus, its ‘military’ operations more and more difficult to execute, its lack of sophisticated weaponry, its lack of funds; this amounted to a comprehensive defeat.