It's a common belief that the initial motives in starting the crusades were anything less than justified and morally righteous.

The first problem was a lot of people who got in on the movement were opportunists who wanted an excuse to get wealthy and gave up before even reaching the Holy Lands to plunder their allied neighbors instead.

The second problem was after defeating the marauding Muslim occupiers, many of the Christian crusaders hypocritically began persecuting the Jews and even native Christians.

The third were more long-term issues of a failure to keep the land safe for pilgrims to travel to after having run out the initial bandits.

Christians tend to over-apologize for the Crusades.