The contest which ensued was one of the many paltry "squabbles for towns and castles" which ever recur in restless Italy, to distract the historian without affording him materials for a stirring episode. The league were bound to bring up a considerable force of cavalry in their respective proportions, but their hearts were not in a cause where they had to support the weaker side, and ere they took the field, Alessandro Sforza, at the head of the ecclesiastical troops, had carried the suburbs of Rimini and reduced the city to great straits.[150] Federigo, after repeated efforts, persuaded the Neapolitan contingent to risk a march through the enemy's country, whereupon Sforza fell back from the leaguer to provide for his own defence. This movement was, however, but of partial benefit to Malatesta, for, as the allies were bound only to defensive operations, they withheld their assistance beyond maintaining him in the limited state of which his father died possessed. Such trifling, and the do-little tactics by which it was supported, scarcely consisted with the exigence, for though the cause was at first unimportant, the disgust and indignation felt by Paul at being outwitted by an almost beardless boy led him to entertain vast schemes of vengeance, extending to the partition of Romagna with his countrymen of Venice, and to a new war for the Neapolitan succession. [Footnote 150: The following dispatch by the Count to the priors of Siena, from Urbino, the 27th of July, before the confederates had appeared, proves how unimportant were the proceedings of the siege. "Since I last wrote your lordships, nothing new has occurred beyond some attempts by the besiegers of Rimini, to which those of the town offered such resistance that they proved fruitless, indeed, rather detrimental. It also happened, by a sudden and unexpected chance, that the barks and armed vessels which blockaded the town were dispersed and scattered; one if not two of them are known to have foundered, but nothing further has yet been heard of their fate."--Archiv. Diplom. at Siena.]