The DispatcherServlet must be configured as normal in web.xml to bootstrap a Spring WebApplicationContext. For example:

<!-- The front controller of this Spring Web application, responsible for handling all application requests -->
<servlet>
    <servlet-name>Spring MVC Dispatcher Servlet</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
        <param-value>/WEB-INF/config/web-application-config.xml</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>