He pointed out to them that it was already winter—hardly the time therefore to contemplate a long voyage across the Mediterranean. But if they came with him and the Venetians, and captured Zara, then they would be able to winter there in comfort. In the spring the fleet would reassemble and, with refreshed forces, the Crusade could proceed on its way, enriched by their share of the loot from Zara.

There were, of course, some dissentients, and some who murmured that they had not left their family estates to make war against a Christian city—even if it happened to be one with which the Venetians had some long-standing feud. They had come to fight against the heathen. They had come to redeem the Holy Places, so that Christian pilgrims could enjoy the right of visiting Jerusalem and making their devotions on that sacred earth where Christ had lived on his own pilgrimage through the world. “Not all of the army,” writes Robert de Clari, “were happy about this decision [to attack Zara]—only the most important of the Crusaders.” But decisions are taken by “the most important”, and the barons realised only too clearly that they had no choice but accept the Doge’s proposition.

Aware that there is nothing like a good gesture to convince the simple or the hesitant, Doge Dandolo now said that if the Crusaders were prepared to help him, he for his part would join with them and ‘take the Cross’. The spectacle of this aged man, with “his sightless, but bright and clear eyes”, kneeling weeping at the altar, as the Cross was sewn upon his cap, moved even the Venetians to tears. Thousands of the citizens hastened to join the Crusade themselves. The effect upon the French knights was electric, and even hardened foot soldiers were moved by the selfless abnegation of this old man (who had nevertheless ensured that if he went on the Crusade his son would act as his regent).[6]

The fact remains that, as a solution to their problems, the attack on Zara still horrified a great many of the Crusaders. Those who could manage to pay the extortionate sums demanded by Venetian boatmen had themselves ferried off Saint Nicholas island and quitted the Crusade. A contemporary historian described the feelings among the virtually imprisoned troops: “The proposal to attack Zara seemed cruel and iniquitous to our leaders, not only because it was a Christian city, but because it belonged to the King of Hungary. The King himself had taken the Cross and placed himself and his possessions (as is the custom) under the Pope’s protection. Much time was lost, for the Venetians were constantly urging us to accept their proposition while we were equally concerned in refusing it… Our men thought it despicable, and contrary to moral law, that soldiers of the Cross of Christ should set out to slaughter and pillage fellow-Christians—for such was inevitably bound to happen in an assault on the city. They therefore refused to agree with the Venetian proposals.” The obstinacy made no difference in the long run. Shortage of food and water, coupled with disease which had broken out among the troops crowded together on the small island, meant that in the end the army would be forced to comply with Dandolo’s suggestion.

Remembering that the Pope had always suspected the Venetian connection with the Crusade, and that he had insisted on a papal legate accompanying the expedition, it is natural to inquire what this emissary of the Pope was doing during these months. Cardinal Peter of Capua, Innocent III’s legate, did not arrive in Venice until the last week of July. As soon as he heard of the proposal made by the Doge to the leaders of the Crusade, he immediately registered his formal protest. He suggested that the army should embark immediately. That the Venetians had not been paid the full sum due to them was counterbalanced, in his opinion, by the fact that only about a third of the army that had originally been envisaged had arrived. Many of the prospective Crusaders, indeed, having heard the news from Venice as they made their way southward from Germany and France, had already halted and turned back.

But the Cardinal, although he might be the Pope’s legate, counted for very little in Venetian eyes. He was ungraciously received, and told that he might accompany the Crusade if he wished—but only as a spiritual pastor and not as a Papal emissary. In the end, he too was forced to realise that the Venetians, or rather the Doge, had successfully trapped the Crusaders ‘between the devil and the deep’. If they were to proceed at all to Egypt or Syria, they must pay the Venetian price—and that meant attacking Zara first of all. Possibly the Cardinal succumbed to that age-old fallacy, that the end justifies the means. Better, he may have thought, that the Crusade should set about its business against the infidel—even at the expense of a Christian city. The only alternative was the dissolution of the army, and with it the Pope’s dream of a Crusade. The Cardinal had protested, but now he acquiesced.

In the first week of October 1202,480 ships left Venice carrying the army of the Fourth Crusade for the attack on Zara. The fleet was a wonderful sight as it made its way through the Venetian lagoons bound for the high seas. Robert de Clari describes the magnificence of the galleys, and in particular that of the Doge, “painted vermilion, with a silk awning of vermilion spread above him, cymbals clashing, and four trumpeters sounding from the bows…” After touching at Trieste and Pola, the fleet arrived off Zara on November 11th.

It was clear that the people of Zara had been anticipating an attack by the Venetians, although they can hardly have envisaged that Doge Dandolo would manage to divert a crusading army for this purpose. They had forearmed themselves by securing a letter from the Pope which excommunicated any one who should attack them.