I am not totaly agreeing, he did arrive late but not too late - Prussian units retreating had to deviate their way or were captured. Now who is to blame for that?

The miserable Ponte - Corvo - or lack of proper staff work? For me - Bernadotte achieved what was possible. What other oportunity did he have?

None. so how could he make the wrong decision. It is unfair to demand from Bernadotte that he would have known more about the position of the Prussian
Army than Napoléon himself.

Hans-Karl:

Like most military enterprises, any number of factors affect how an event plays out. What this whole discussion has been about is placing blame, who is at fault, which goes back to what was possible and what *should* have been done. Some folks are into history to do just that, decide what *should* have been done by their own lights, place blame and exalt the heros who seem to follow those *shoulds*. It makes for real easy history, black hats and white hats. Napoleon used that kind of history in his Bulletins. You know folks are into this mode when any circumstances are labeled 'excuses' after the fact.

However, all I said was that Bernadotte made the wrong decision, not that he was to blame, not that circumstances led him to it. Unless I have some clear indication of his thinking, motivations and goals, I really can't do that to any degree. Inference works with events, but not so well when figuring out the motivation behind them. What Bernadotte knew at the time, knew of his orders and expectations placed on him, I really can't make any hard conclusions about why he did what he did.

When an officer fails to get into action when he is expected to, even though that is the goal for his decision, I'd say he made the wrong decision. In life, people make the wrong decisions for the right reasons all the time. Only in games and fairy tales do people make good decsions for good reasons and bad decisions for bad reasons 100% of the time, let alone for 100% good reasons at any time.

Bill H.