The 1954 Anglo–Egyptian Treaty terminated the presence of British armed forces along the Suez Canal.
Although Britain relinquished its military presence in other parts of Egypt after WWII, it continued to keep its forces in a number of camps, airfields and other military installations along the Suez Canal.
After the Egyptian monarchy was abolished in 1953, the Arab Republic of Egypt, demanding total British withdrawal from the country, resorted to guerrilla warfare against British troops in the Canal Zone.
In 1954, with a need to curtail its financial burdens, and under some pressure from the U.S. administration, Great Britain decided to quit the Suez Canal. The treaty allowed however, access to British civilian contractors in order to maintain peacetime installations and the return of British forces to a Canal base in the event of war.