Hotchkiss et Cie

Société Anonyme des Anciens Etablissements Hotchkiss et Cie was a French arms and, in the 20th century, automobile manufacturer first established by United States gunsmith Benjamin B. Hotchkiss. He moved to France and set up a factory, first at Viviez near Rodez in 1867, then at Saint-Denis near Paris in 1875 manufacturing arms used by the French in the Franco-Prussian war, and later the U.S. government, who deployed them in the 1879 Mill River Campaign against Sitting Bull.

An example of the company's output was the Hotchkiss revolving cannon (see picture from a privately circulated book dated 1874 by Alfred Koerner, later chairman of the company). The cannon had five barrels each able to fire 43 shells a minute a distance of one mile; it was made in four sizes from 37 mm to 57 mm, the largest intended for naval use. At the turn-of-the-twentieth-century, the company introduced the gas-actuated Hotchkiss machine gun, a sturdy and reliable weapon which was widely used during World War I and thereafter by the French Army.

An embarrassment of profits at the turn of the twentieth century prompted the company to move into the car business to avoid attracting too much attention from the French government, according to the chairman's son, also Alfred Koerner, speaking in the early 1980s. 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.

The first Hotchkiss car, a 17 CV (13 kW) four-cylinder model, appeared in 1903. The badge for the marque consisted of a pair of crossed cannons — a salute to the company's first products.

A factory fire nearly killed all projects. Despite this, a six-cylinder model followed in 1906. During World War I, they mass-produced the Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun, tank parts and other weapons. In 1933, they developed the Hotchkiss H35 tank.

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