9 min readNew DelhiAug 7, 2026 11:27 AM IST First published on: Aug 7, 2026 at 11:27 AM ISTNestled within the walls of a 17th-century Dutch fort in Covelong (Kovalam), Tamil Nadu, is a luxury beach hotel. Its website proudly describes the property as a five-star retreat on the shores of the Bay of Bengal, between Chennai and the UNESCO World Heritage site of Mahabalipuram. What it doesn’t mention is the fort’s connection to Banquibazar, now a suburb of Barrackpore in West Bengal.Three centuries ago, Covelong and Banquibazar were linked as trading settlements of the Ostend Company, also known as the General Imperial India Company, the Austrian Empire’s attempt to enter the lucrative trade of the Indian Ocean.Advertisement“Both the colonies, in terms of their exact locations, still exist. But their connection to the Austrian East India Company is relatively forgotten because the company itself survived for only a few years,” academic Saugata Bhaduri tells indianexpress.com.While the western bank of the Hooghly was dotted with Portuguese, Dutch, French and Danish colonies, the eastern bank, where Calcutta had already been established, briefly hosted the Austrians. “About 30-40 kilometres north of Calcutta, the Austrians set up their first colony in the early 1720s,” says Bhaduri.The Holy Roman Empire expandsIn the 18th century, the Habsburg Monarchy within the Holy Roman Empire extended across territories as far apart as Ostend and Antwerp in present-day Belgium and, later, Trieste in northeastern Italy. Yet for much of its early history, the empire lacked a significant maritime outlet. As it expanded, it acquired what is today Belgium, then known as the Austrian Netherlands.