Subhas Chandra (1933 - 1936)

Subhas Chandra arrived in Venice on March 6, 1933 and was

greeted by a message from the Hindustan Association of Italy, questions from Italian journalists and his nephew Asoke Bose. After briefly resting in Venice (pic top right), Subhas Bose and nephew made their way to Vienna, which was to become his home base in Europe . He had never been to pre-war Vienna (left), the capital of the earlier Hapsburg Empire.(pic-top left)
     To Bose Vienna beckoned as a great medical center, as one of the cultural capital of the world, and as a great city at the cross roads of Europe , from where he could travel throughout the continent. Bose saw the surface of an elegant city and one which was , as some said, 'red vienna in a black country. He should responded positively to the . to the achievement of the socialists , or red municipal govt. of Vienna.but he did not seem to have a sense of the political, cultural, and economic changes - some thought catastrophes  - which Austria had gone through as a result of the first World War and the sudden collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire . To a sensitive German- Austrian landscape looked much different , as for example, to the noted writer, Stephen Zweig,,

Subhas was eager to meet all the important Europeans and Asians living in Europe.During his first month first in Vienna and then in Switzerland,  one of his confidants and allies was an elderly political leader from India, Vittalbhai Patel elder brother of Vallabhbhai Patel, a Gandhite.  This was an instructive and valuable contact for Bose because the elder Patel was an ally from the Swarajya Party of C.R.Das and had been actually acting on one of Das' Plansthat was cut short by his early death.  Patel had been touring Eurrope and the United States making positive propaganda and contacts for Indian Nationalism. This was the same task for which Bose had set himself and strengthened him in he belief that it was a vital enterprise. Moreover, Patel had helped found the Indo-Irish League and was able to bring Bose into contact with Mrs. M. Woods, an official of this organisation and its President, Maud Gonne McBride. Eventually this organisation was able to help arrange Bose's visit to Ireland , fulfillment of one of his fondest desires.
Bose and patel met De Valera
, Freedom fighter and President of Ireland