told French that the Cavalry Division was to be broken up, although he would retain "nominal command", and gave him command of Johannesburg Area, a triangle encompassing Johannesburg-Klerksdorp-Vereeninging. On 11 November Roberts summoned French to discuss the question of cavalry armament. On 13 December 1900 Smuts and de la Rey attacked a British force at Nooitgedacht. On 17 December 1900 Kritzinger and Herzog invaded Cape Colony, hoping to stir up rebellion among the Cape Boers (who were legally British subjects). Although Kitchener had a paper strength of 200,000 men in early 1901, so many of these were tied down on garrison duty that French had only 22,000 men, of whom 13,000 were combatants, to fight 20,000 Boer guerrillas. By April 1901, after three months campaigning, French's eight columns had captured 1,332 Boers and 272,752 farm animals. French was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB), for his role in the conventional phases of the war (the award was dated 29 November 1900 and gazetted in April 1901, but French did not receive the decoration itself until an audience with King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace on 8 August 1902). Cape Colony On 1 June 1901 Kitchener ordered French to take command in Cape Colony. He was ordered to use "severity" (italics in the original) against captured rebels—this was intended to complement lenient treatment for those who surrendered voluntarily. French (8 June) ordered the President of the Standing Court Martial to be ready to proceed "with the utmost rigour". Milner had already warned French at the time of the Colesberg operations (30 December 1899) not to treat every Cape Boer as a rebel unless it was proven so. French, who had lost several friends during the war, believed that stern measures would help end matters more quickly. On 8 July 1901 he gave short shrift for a deputation which sought clemency for some rebels sentenced to execution. French even forced the inhabitants of Middelburg to watch one hanging, incurring a concerned inquiry from St John Brodrick (Secretary of State for War), who was also vainly urging Kitchener to greater leniency. During this period of the war—conducting "drives" across the country for Boer guerrillas, and eventually dividing up the country with barbed wire and imprisoning Boer civilians in camps—French had to struggle with out-of-date information, and trying to maintain communications between British forces by telegraph, heliograph and dispatch