Grenzers at the Battle of Arcole, 1796
The Grenzers were light infantry forces raised by the Reichsarmee of the Holy Roman Empire and the armies of the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary from the mid-1700s until 1918. The Grenzers replaced the Pandours and were stationed along the border with the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, and they would form a quarter of the Reichsarmee by the time of the French Revolutionary Wars. The Grenzers were drawn from the military frontier regions in what is now Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, and Romania, and they had a maximum strength of 57,000 troops in 1800. However, mutiny led to this number dropping to 13,000 that same year, and the number of Grenz infantry was reduced during the rest of the 19th century, as the rise of South Slavic nationalism and the decline of the Ottomans led to the Austrians disbanding most of their frontier troops. However, Grenzers would remain in the service of Austria until the end of World War I in 1918.
Gallery[]
