On 8 November 1918, at the end of World War I, a socialist workers' council forced Duke Ernest Augustus to abdicate. On 10 November, the council proclaimed the Socialist Republic of Brunswick under one-party government by the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD); however, the subsequent Landtag election on 22 December 1918 was won by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD), and the USPD and MSPD formed a coalition government. An uprising in Braunschweig in 1919, led by the communist Spartacus League, was defeated when "Freikorps" troops under Georg Ludwig Rudolf Maercker took over the city on order of the German Minister of Defence, Gustav Noske. An SPD-led government was subsequently established; in December 1921, a new constitution was approved for the Free State of Brunswick, now a parliamentary republic within the Weimar Republic, again with Braunschweig as its capital.