The Austrians and Serb rebels briefly succeeded in liberating a strip of land east and south of Belgrade, which in Serbian historiography came to be known as Koča's Frontier (), after one of the senior rebel leaders, Koča Anđelković. In 1791, the Austrians and Ottomans signed the Treaty of Sistova. The Austrians agreed to return all the territory that they and the Serbs had captured south of the Danube in exchange for minor territorial concessions in northern Bosnia, effectively abandoning the Serbs and leaving them to resist the Ottomans on their own. The rebels were crushed by 1792 and most of their leaders executed. Unwilling to surrender, Petrović became a "hajduk" and briefly fought the Ottomans as an outlaw. He and his family once again sought refuge in the Austrian Empire, this time finding sanctuary in the Krušedol Monastery, at the foot of Fruška Gora, where Petrović worked as a forester.