Rallied German Democratic Republic leaders to mess around with Europe (9)

I believe the answer is:

regrouped

'rallied' is the definition.

'german democratic republic leaders to mess around with europe' is the wordplay.
'leaders' says to take the initial letters.
'to mess around with' is an anagram indicator (I've seen 'messing around' mean this).
The initial letters of 'german democratic republic' is 'gdr'.
'gdr' mixed up with 'europe' can make 'REGROUPED'.

(Another definition for regrouped that I've seen is " Reassembled into sets".)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.

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