General Sir James Simpson GCB (1792 – 18 April 1868) was a British Army officer of the 19th century.

He commanded the British troops in the Crimea from June to November 1855, following the death of Field Marshal Lord Raglan.

[1] Educated at the University of Edinburgh, Simpson was commissioned into the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards on 3 April 1811.

Historians Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used the phrase "lions led by donkeys" on 27 September 1855, in an article published in Neue Oder-Zeitung, No.

457 (1 October 1855), on the British military's strategic mistakes and failings during the fall of Sevastopol, and particularly Simpson's military leadership of the assault on the Great Redan:The joke making the rounds of the Russian army, that "L'armée anglaise est une armée de lions, commandée par des ânes" (The English army is an army of lions led by asses) has been thoroughly vindicated by the assault on Redan.