Fiction and truth

Could there be an historical novel about the Battle of Waterloo in which not one sentence was true?

Yes, of course.

Imagine a novel in which everything said about the battle in the author's narration is at least a bit off the mark.

The time or date of the beginning is wrong.

The description of Wellington is not quite right.

The composition and number of the opposing forces was not as the novel says.

And so on.

But there was a Battle of Waterloo, and it pit Wellington against Napoleon.

And Napoleon lost.

And the novel, though it does not assert these true things, asserts what entails them.

But then what, really, is the tie to truth that makes a novel about Waterloo about Waterloo, rather than some wholly fictitious battle on the third moon of Jupiter, known for some reason by that name?

Sure, there is a tie.

But what is it?

What is the connection to reality that makes a novel set in New York set in New York, rather than in a town by that name on the frontier on Venus?