Hotchkiss et Cie

At the turn of the twentieth century, the company introduced the gas-operated Hotchkiss machine gun, a sturdy and reliable weapon which was widely used during World War I and thereafter by the French Army.

Information provided by the company for the International Universal Exhibition of 1900, at which it displayed a variety of cannons, said the St Denis factory employed around 400 staff and had 600 machine tools.

During World War I, they mass-produced the Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun, tank parts and other weapons.

In the early 1970s, the Hotchkiss marque disappeared, as the French conglomerate came to be known as Thomson-Brandt [fr].

The Char léger modèle 1935 H, Commonly known as the Hotchkiss H35 was a light tank produced by the company in the mid-1930s.

An estimated 1,200 vehicles were built between September 1936 and June 1940, however it remained in service with multiple countries as late as 1952.

Unlike many other vehicles of the time, the H35 was not made of riveted rolled homogenous armoured plates – rather, it was almost entirely cast iron.

Several Hotchkiss tanks were captured by Nazi Germany and converted to Panzerjäger (Marder I) assault guns.