In January 1915 Hurgronje published the article "Holy War made in Germany" in the well-known Dutch journal "De Gids". The article is a polemic against European culture that condemns the moral outrages of World War I. Hurgronje blamed Germany and its cadre of orientalist scholars for the declaration of Jihad made by the Ottoman government in 1914. He accused the German orientalists of undermining the goals of modernizing Islamic society. According to Hurgronje the war was a consequence of forces beyond the control of Muslims. He argues that Muslims are capable of progress and that he had in common with "the Turk" the ideas of "religious peace and freedom of thought". He saw Jihad as a medieval phenomenon and that the 1908 Revolution had ended this medievalism. The "fetish of the Caliphate" (and the associated Jihad), he says, experiences a revival only under European pressure. His friendship with Carl Heinrich Becker who was attacked in the article was severely strained as a result.