Trenck earned most of his fame during the War of the Austrian Succession, as the leader and commander of a unit of pandurs, or paramilitary troops in the Austrian army which specialized in frontier warfare, guerrilla tactics and surprise hit-and-run actions, into which he recruited mostly Croatian mercenaries, experienced fighters from the Austro-Ottoman border.
Tudor initially gathered his Pandurs in Padeș and relied on a grid of fortified monasteries such as Tismana and Strehaia.