the ages of nineteen and twenty-seven, but because of the limited size of the army—about 23,000 in 1939—few were actually conscripted. During World War II, Egypt's army grew to about 100,000 troops. Britain maintained a strong influence […] and provided it with equipment, instruction, and technicians. Under the terms of the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936, British troops remained in the country to defend the Suez Canal." Upon Italian entry into World War II, the Italian Tenth Army launched the Italian invasion of Egypt from Cyrenaica in September 1940. Egypt severed relations with the Axis powers after the Italians invaded, but remained technically neutral up until near the end of the war. Italy sought to control the Suez Canal but halted their advance at Sidi Barrani, waiting for engineers to build a road, and further supplies. A British counter-offensive, Operation Compass, began in December 1940 with the invasion of Libya. After significant gains, they were repulsed by German reinforcements under German General Erwin Rommel, who reinvaded Egypt and again were pushed out after the Second Battle of El-Alamein. U.S. diplomats wrote in 1952 that a split had been developing since 1929-30 between college educated younger officers, who had been dispatched to take staff course in the United Kingdom, and the "older ill-educated top-ranking officers [who] were apparently keeping them from promotion. ..During the Palestine War the extent of the graft and corruption among these older officers became apparent to an alarming degree, and during 1950 the younger officers succeeded in forcing a thorough investigation of the Arms Scandal, resulting in the retirement of the majority of the top-ranking generals, including Haidar Pasha, the Commander-in-Chief, Osman Mahdi Pasha, the Chief of Staff, and Sirry Amer Pasha, Commander of the elite Frontier Corps (Egypt). However, not long ago after the retirement of these officers, they were quietly reappointed to their old positions by the King, and the junior officers again found themselves the victims of graft, corruption and favoritism by the Palace clique." By 1950, King Farouk was recruiting former German Wehrmacht army officers to advise the army, replacing the British Military Mission, which had left Egypt in 1947. Generals Wilhelm Fahrmbacher and Oskar Munzel led the advisors, who stayed until 1958. Fahrmbacher and six aides arrived in Egypt in 1950 as the initial party of a group of about 30 officers. After the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 After the defeat of the