A number of men are seen working and moving around in a grey, cratered landscape with improvised buildings and shattered trees.

The men in the foreground largely have normal human traits, while the soldiers who populate the rest of the scene lack individual features.

The Imperial War Museum's object description defines their unnatural, mostly light brown bodies as "marionette-like".

The inspiration came from the Renaissance, and the dimensions of the commissioned paintings were based on Paolo Uccello's The Battle of San Romano at the National Gallery.

[1] Lewis served in the Royal Artillery at the Battle of Passchendaele and could draw from this experience when making the painting.