Under the command of General Hubert Gough who was commanding the 7th Division at the time of the Somme offensive and overseeing the capture of Thiepval, Maze's extraordinary courage combined with his skills as a linguist and draughtsman were to prove invaluable in his role as an interpreter and liaison officer. Amongst his responsibilities was high risk reconnaissance work, recording enemy lines from positions forward of the British trenches. By the end of the war, he was known simply as 'l'institution Maze'.

It was on the Somme sector that Maze produced some of his most interesting drawings. This rare sketch depicts a lone soldier surveying the sad and desolate frozen landscape amidst the ruins and barbed wire.

Maze's experiences during the First World War were documented in his book A Frenchman in Khaki, first published by William Heinemann in 1934 with a Preface by Sir Winston Churchill (See display cabinet below).

"To find places from which to make my drawings was at times difficult I had to use a periscope and crane my neck over the sandbags quickly and peep, but the parapet was very high and I kept slipping off....Bit by bit we dissected the ground with our field-glasses, and I made drawings from every possible angle, marking every possible obstacle that could hinder the advance of our troops" Extract from A Frenchman in Khaki.