from Middle East Command, but felt unable to accept the appointment, which was then taken by General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson. Alexander presided over Montgomery's victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein. After the Anglo-American forces from Operation Torch and the Western Desert forces met in the Tunisian campaign in January 1943, he became deputy to General Dwight D. Eisenhower in Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ). With Eighth Army passing to AFHQ's command, Middle East Command became somewhat of a military backwater. General Wilson succeeded Alexander as its commander-in-chief and during his tenure it mounted only one significant operation: the unsuccessful Dodecanese Campaign from September to November 1943. The last act of Middle East Command took place during the Levant Crisis between May and June 1945 when British and Indian troops successfully invaded Syria and escorted French forces back to their barracks. Middle East Land Forces from 1945 After 1945, the Middle East Command was reformed as Middle East Land Forces. Middle East Land Forces commanded the forces in Libya (25th Armoured Brigade, which was later subsumed into 10th Armoured Division) until 1957, and the 1st Infantry Division, 3rd Infantry Division, the Royal Dragoons; 4 Royal Tank Regiment; 43 LAA Regiment RA; 71st Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery, three signal regiments, and other forces, in the Suez Canal Zone until the early 1950s. 2 Wireless Regiment Royal Signals was in Cyprus. In October 1951 in the Suez Canal Zone the 1st Infantry Division comprised 1st (Guards), 2nd, and 3rd Brigades; it arrived back in the UK in Autumn 1955 (Lord & Watson, The Royal Corps of Signals: Unit Histories of the Corps, 25) minus the 1st Brigade. The Free Officers, led by Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser, overthrew King Farouk of Egypt in the Egyptian coup d'état of 1952. The Free Officers then concluded the Anglo–Egyptian Agreement of 1954, signed on 19 October, with Great Britain. It stipulated a phased evacuation of British troops from the Suez base, agreed to withdrawal of all troops within 20 months (that is, June 1956); maintenance of the base was to be continued; and allowed Britain to hold the right to return for seven years. In December 1954 HQ MELF moved to Cyprus. The compromise solution to retain British influence over the Suez Canal base area, seen as vital in the event of any future Middle East war with the Soviet Union, was