It was a sorry business altogether, that siege of Zara, and though we may sympathise with their reluctance to attack their fellow-Christians with the arms destined for the fall of Islam, we must remember the solemn undertaking given to the Doge in payment of a just debt. {177} Fortunately the siege lasted but five days, when the citizens, finding their position hopeless, surrendered the city on condition that their lives were spared. With great generosity the Doge divided the town into two parts, and handed one over to the French for winter quarters. The Venetians settled on the other, for it was impossible to return before Easter. Scarcely had they been lodged there three days when "there began a fray, exceeding fell and fierce, between the Venetians and the Franks ... and the fray was so fierce that there were but few streets in which battle did not rage with swords and lances and cross-bows and darts; and many people were killed and wounded." Perhaps this incident served to convince the leaders of the difficulty of inducing the quarrelsome soldiers of two nations to sit down together in peace for any considerable period, and to induce them to look with more favour upon their next visitors. These were the envoys of King Philip of Germany and the young Alexios, who came, bringing this message to the Crusaders and the Doge: "Lords," said King Philip, "I will send you the brother of my wife, and I commit him into the hands of God--may He keep him from death--and into your hands. And because you have fared forth for God, and for right, and for justice, therefore are you bound, in so far as you are able, to restore to their own inheritance those who have been unrighteously despoiled. And my wife's brother will make with you the best terms ever offered to any people, and give you the most puissant help for the recovery of the land oversea." This proposal was the occasion of much debate. The Abbot de Vaux was all for the dispersal of the host, or {178} an immediate advance upon Palestine. The other side pointed out that they would not be able to do anything, disunited as they were, if they went to Palestine, and that it was only "by way of Babylon or of Greece, that the land oversea could actually be recovered." "If we reject this covenant," they urged, "we shall be shamed to all time."