There was an actual place named the Triplex Confinium after the treaty of peace of Karlowitz (Sremski Karlovci) in 1699 and today it is a territory belonging to the Republics of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (the very point where empires met was Medveđak, today Medveđa Glavica, at the top of Debelo Brdo, a mountain northeast of Knin).
Grützner was born in 1846, the youngest of children, into a farming family in Groß-Karlowitz near Neisse, Upper Silesia, Prussia (now Poland).
After the treaty of Karlowitz, Selim resigned again and moved to his farm in Silivri, what is now a suburb of Istanbul.