Churchill was painting with Maze on the estate at the Château Saint-Georges-Motel on 20 August 1939 when he received a telegram "Situation worsening. Advice come home you might have a job". Maze noted in his diary Churchill's remark, 'This is the last picture we shall paint in peace for a very long time" and his recollection of that day: "What amazed me was his concentration over his painting. No one but he could have have understood more what the possibility of war meant, and how ill prepared we were. As he worked. he would now and then make statements as to the relative strengths of the German Army or the French Army. 'They are strong, I tell you, they are strong', he would say. Then his jaw would clench his large cigar, and I felt the determination of his will. 'Ah' he would say, 'with it all, we shall have him."

The following inscription is written on the painting's backboard: 'This Picture was done near St Georges Motel in 1939 on the day war was declared - Jessie & Paul. We left in 1940 when the German army were a few miles from us & we drove away to Bordeaux where by providence there was xxll & ships which brought us safely to England'