His constant references to the ancient world have the effect of giving ordinary soldiers a sense of their lives.

One of the chief values reading history, this is the author, is its capacity to "provoke renegade thoughts".

I have beaten the Russian and Austrian army commanded by the two emperors. I am a little tired.

We were always taught as historians, or at least I was at university, never to use the word 'inevitable', because nothing is inevitable in history. And that's true, except for German counterattack.

What finally scuppered Napoleon's Europe was of course the fatal combination of the English Channel and the Russian winter; the same unlikely partnership that also did for Hitler's Europe.

With their own record of killing 12 million American Indians and supporting slavery for four decades after the British abolished it, Americans wish to project their historical guilt on to someone else.