During the European Spring of Nations, Poles took up arms in the Greater Poland Uprising of 1848 to resist the Prussians. Initially, the uprising manifested itself in the form of civil disobedience but eventually turned into an armed struggle when the Prussian military was sent in to pacify the region. Subsequently, the uprising was suppressed and the semi-autonomous Grand Duchy of Posen, created from the Prussian partition of Poland, was incorporated into Prussia, and in 1871 into the German Empire.