While I agree that the Saracens needed to be opposed and driven out of our lands, the prevailing insane religious mania and horrible corruption of the time made the entire operation a horrible tragedy on balance. Fellow European nations being looted just because it was convenient when the soldiers passed through. Hundreds of thousands of European lives lost to (temporarily) conquer a "holy land" that was never holy to begin with, adding to the well-nigh permanent derangement of the European minds that still think, to this day, that somehow our heritage derives from the Middle East -- which it doesn't.