Author: Archibald Hurd

Archibald Hurd built a career as a British journalist, editor, and naval historian whose books addressed maritime policy during a period of rapid technological and geopolitical change. If There Were No Navies examines sea power during the First World War and argues that fleets shaped events on land by protecting transport, commerce, and imperial communication. Published in London by Jas. Truscott and Son in 1916, the short work belongs to a larger wartime bibliography that includes The German Fleet, Naval Prospects in 1917, and The British Fleet in the Great War. Hurd also wrote broader naval histories and later received a knighthood. His career joined current journalism with institutional history, making technical naval questions accessible to general readers. The direct, argumentative format of If There Were No Navies reflects its wartime purpose, while its place among Hurd’s other books shows his sustained effort to explain strategy, shipbuilding, merchant shipping, and the dependence of national policy on control of the sea.