LONDON â€"  George Washington has been named Britain's greatest ever foe, according to the UK's National Army Museum.

The American Revolutionary War hero and the country's first president was the winner of a vote held at the museum Saturday to identify the Britain's most outstanding military opponent, The (London) Daily Telegraph reported.

The museum drew up a list of 20 candidates, which was whittled down to a shortlist of five. On Saturday, five historians presented the case for each commander to an audience of 70 guests at the west London museum who then voted.

Washington was named ahead of Michael Collins, who led Ireland to independence from the UK; France's Napoleon Bonaparte; Erwin Rommel, the German World War II commander; and Turkish World War I leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

To qualify for the vote, each commander had to come from the 17th century onwards -- the period covered by the museum's collection --- and had to have led an army in the field against the British, which excluded political enemies like Adolf Hitler.