Historians turning their hands to fiction are all the rage. Since Alison Weir led the way in 2006, an ever-growing number of established non-fiction writers - Giles Milton, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Harry Sidebottom, Patrick Bishop, Ian Mortimer and myself included - have written historical novels.
My forebears were fantastically wealthy Armenians who came to England from India in the 19th century and did what foreign types do - they married into a penniless but well-bred local family.
The first Romanov ruler was just 16 when he was crowned Tsar Michael I in Moscow in 1613, thus ending the 'Time of Troubles' sparked by Ivan the Terrible's death.
Given the gruesome fate of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and his family, and the fact that five of the previous 12 Romanov rulers were also murdered, it is easy to regard Russia's imperial dynasty as cursed.
It is surely no coincidence that Napoleon's two greatest heroes were Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. In certain respects, he would outdo them both.
History tells us that a general can move and feed an army as efficiently as he likes, but the real litmus test is the battlefield.
By 1917, thanks to the new munitions factories and the women that worked in them, the British Empire was supplying more than 50 million shells a year.
It is not enough just to get your forces from A to B - you have to keep them fed and watered as they go. The art of movement, therefore, is one of the most complex and vital that any commander must master if he is going to win.
The people who read the history books tend to have a natural zeal and are alarmingly well-read.
Ever since World War I, superior force is no longer measured in terms of men or horses, but in the means to wreak destruction.
