Hastings is not an historian I would choose to read, and nor would I usually bother with a book restricted to the build up to the war and the outbreak, but I have acquired a copy and have been reading it for three days now.
The quotes are transposed not "scanned down."

There is nothing in the book that supports your view of an army led by incompetents.
None of your views are supported by any historian, so why do you cling to them?

The opinion about how the war had to be fought is the opinion of all the military historians.
In what way are you qualified to imagine that you know better Jim?!