Grenz infantry or Grenzers or Granichary (from German: Grenzer "border guard" or "frontiersman"; Serbo-Croatian: graničari, krajišnici, Serbian Cyrillic: граничари, крајишници, Russian Cyrillic: граничары) were light infantry troops who came from the Military Frontier in the Habsburg Monarchy (later the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary). This borderland formed a buffer zone between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire, and the troops were originally raised to defend their homelands against the Ottoman Turks. When there was no danger of war against the Ottomans, the Grenzer regiments were employed by the Habsburgs in other theatres of war, although one battalion of each regiment would always remain guarding the border.