17 February 1854, he became British Commissioner with the Turkish Army providing advice to General Omar Pasha as the Crimean War started. He assisted the Turks at the defence of Silistra in June 1854 and then led them at the Battle of Giurgevo in July 1854; having been promoted to brevet major on 12 July 1854 and to brevet lieutenant colonel on 14 July 1854, he landed with the Turks at the Battle of Eupatoria in February 1855 and remained with them for the Siege of Sevastopol in the Summer of 1855. Promoted to brevet colonel on 12 December 1857 Simmons became British Consul in Warsaw in February 1858, Commander, Royal Engineers at Aldershot in 1860 and Director of the Royal Engineer Establishment in Chatham in 1865. Promoted to major general on 6 March 1868, he became Lieutenant-Governor of the Royal Military Academy in March 1869 and subsequently Governor of the Academy. He became Colonel Commandant of the Royal Engineers with promotion to lieutenant general on 27 August 1872. He was also appointed a Commissioner to enquire into the Causes of Accidents on Railways in June 1874. Simmons went on to be Inspector General of Fortifications in 1875, and having been promoted to full general on 1 October 1877, he was invited to join a Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the condition and sufficiency of the means provided for the defence of the more important seaports within the Colonial Possessions. In June 1884 he became Governor of Malta, where he oversaw significant constitutional and social changes on the island. After he retired in September 1888, the Foreign Office continued to utilise his services and in 1889 he went to Rome as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Pope Leo XIII. He also became honorary colonel of the 1st Gloucestershire (The Western Counties) Engineer Volunteers, Royal Engineers and subsequently of the 1st Devonshire and Somersetshire Royal Engineers and after that of the 1st Middlesex Royal Engineers as well as honorary colonel of the Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff Corps. Promoted to field marshal on 21 May 1890, Simmons retired to Hawley House at Hawley in Hampshire where he died on 14 February 1903. He is buried at the Church of St John the Baptist, Churchill in Somerset. Family In 1846 Simmons married his cousin, Ellen Lintorn Simmons; they had one daughter, Eleanor. Following the death of his first wife, he