The flagship journal of the Royal Historical Society has retracted a paper positing that British and Canadian soldiers committed “scores” of prisoner executions against German forces during World War I. The move followed an investigation for plagiarism.
The article, written by historian Alex J. Kay of the University of Potsdam in Germany, was published online in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society in early February. On February 19, the co-editors of the journal received a complaint that Kay’s article shared similarities with a 2010 article by Brian Feltman, a historian at Georgia Southern University, in Statesboro.
The journal looked into the claims and identified several passages that “appeared to follow this source too closely in argument, content, and style, with insufficient acknowledgement,” according to a statement the Royal Historical Society shared with Retraction Watch. The group then shared the passages with external editors, who agreed with the initial findings.
“Following a detailed review, the editors, together with three independent and experienced journal editors, identified passages of the article which followed this source too closely in argument, content and style, without sufficient acknowledgement/reference,” the August 29 retraction notice states. Kay “strongly disagrees with this decision,” the notice adds.
Transactions pointed to the “similarities in sentence structure, phrasing and interpretation” in various passages. Kay told us these were “all descriptive in nature; they were neither analytical nor related to conclusions or hypotheses.”
Kay’s work claimed to be “the first study directly to compare the actions of the British and the Canadians, the Empire’s two largest armies on the western front,” he wrote in the published paper, and, unlike Feltman’s work, to draw upon unit diaries and after-action reports. Kay cited Feltman’s work throughout — seven times in the text itself, 12 times in the footnotes — and believes that the journal’s motive for retraction may be political.
“One senior colleague in Germany, far from being surprised by the journal’s actions, suggested immediately that it was likely a political decision due to the subject of British war crimes during either of the world wars still being a very touchy subject in the U.K.,” he said.
“The editors reject any suggestion that the retraction was political,” the Royal Historical Society’s statement reads.
Kay told us he learned of the complaint on April 1 in an email from the Royal Historical Society and Transactions, signed by the journal’s co-editors. The email included information on plagiarism as defined by the Committee on Publication Ethics.
“Even Transactions’ own accusation didn’t make this claim,” Kay told us. He expected that, under COPE guidelines, the journal would have offered Kay the opportunity to correct the article. But Kay said the journal didn’t offer him the opportunity to make any corrections. “It was thus in breach of the guidelines it cited itself.”
Cambridge University Press, which publishes the journal, “maintains a fixed version of record for all the journals it publishes. Dr. Kay was informed that the only remedies available therefore were a separate correction or a retraction. The former was neither feasible nor appropriate in this case,” the Royal Historical Society said in its statement.
“Transactions never explained why this was,” Kay added.
The retraction notice also gave dual submission as a reason for retraction: “At the time of its submission to Transactions, the article was submitted to another journal, contrary to the declaration made by the author at the time of submission.” But Kay told us that he submitted his manuscript to Transactions only after having received no response to his follow-up message to the first journal.
The source of the original complaint requested anonymity and was not part of the journal’s investigation process, Transactions’ co-editors said.
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Interesting, and on the author’s claims of the “why” on the retraction.
I don’t know about Canada, but I am enough of a WWI history student to know the UK did indeed commit war crimes.
If an author cites another article 19 (!) times, he’s clearly not plagiarising it. I just looked at the COPE guidelines; they’re pretty clear on what is and what isn’t plagiarism. No idea why the journal thought it was ‘neither feasible nor appropriate’ to allow the author to make the required edits; that would be fairly common procedure, especially if an article is only online. Very odd conduct by the journal.
Not commenting on the merits of this particular case, but it is possible to cite a source multiple times and still plagiarize it. I see it all the time in undergraduate writing: students think just because they throw in a few citations, it doesn’t matter that they “borrow” their entire argument from a source. But I too wonder why the required edits aren’t allowed. Kay explicitly acknowledges the overlap of their work with Feltman’s – if it really is too close, then that should have been caught by a reviewer. Agree that this is odd conduct by the journal.
I have only read the newer article but it seems to me to give due respect to previous researchers and what they primarily based their research on. As a keen military student I am much better informed by this article.
I am unable to render any comment on whether the retraction is warranted but the amount of illegal killing unearthed does make one wonder about the motives of the complainant.
Kay engages directly with Feltman (and other authors) in a long opening section discussing why their article differs from previous literature. And, judging from the 158 footnotes citing numerous archives, printed primary sources and secondary works, it’s very hard to imagine that Kay has borrowed their argument from Feltman (who doesn’t even look at the Canadians…). I agree that any close overlap between the two articles ought to have been caught by the reviewers. It’s a peer-reviewed journal, after all. So the article must have gone through an external review process, as well as the usual internal editing process, prior to publication.
Rebeka is correct: A source may be cited multiple times and still plagiarism of text or of ideas from that source may occur. That said, I am bothered by suggestions that peer reviewers (PRs) should have caught the plagiarism. No, the primary job of the PR is to critically evaluate the soundness of the claims in the context of the existing literature, not whether misconduct has occurred. For sure, a keen-eyed PR will notice irregularities in the results, discrepancies in the methods, etc., which might be suggestive of fabrication or falsification or some other form of misconduct. Similarly, PRs may even become suspicious that plagiarism is taking place when they, for example, detect unusual changes in the ‘voice’ of the manuscript or recognize some expression unique to other authors or of Gen-AI-derived content. In all of the above instances, PRs may go the extra mile and investigate further, but that is not their job. My sense is that, in most instances, detecting potential misconduct may not even on the radar of most PRs when they are asked to evaluate a manuscript. On the other hand, given all the misconduct that pops up these days, perhaps it should. 🙁
Wrong. It is their job to be subject matter experts, which includes knowing the literature.
Francois, it should be readily obvious that that the statement “…evaluate the soundness of the claims in the context of the existing literature …” implies being knowledgeable about the existing literature.
Quite a contrast from the many cases of college presidents and politicians that hit the news for allegations of plagiarizing their theses. Those cases are commonly dismissed after an investigation (that’re seldom released- privacy, you know). The investigation will conclude it wasn’t plagiarism, it was just insufficient attribution, poor citation practices followed by the inexperienced (at the time) student scholar. The cases of accused college presidents are often brought by disgruntled professors and then the college turns the narrative on the bad motivations of the accusers, as if that excuses the plagiarism. Plays out over and over in the pages of RW and the general news. Here’s the most recent one that comes to mind, https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2026/01/08/umds-600000-plagiarism-blunder/
One has to wonder the extent to which such cases contribute to students’ tolerant attitudes toward academically dishonest behaviors and even to the public’s increasing skepticism about the value of a college education .