Thousands of Serbs fleeing Turkish oppression settle as border guards in Slavonia and southern Hungary.

The Austrian Militärgrenze, or “Military Frontier,” thus takes the momentous step of introducing Orthodox Serbs into Catholic Croatian and Hungarian territory.

As the Turkish threat wanes, Croatian nobles demand reincorporation of the military border into Croatia.

Austria, which uses the guards as an inexpensive standing military force, rejects these demands, and the guards themselves oppose abrogation of their special privileges.