soixante-quinze

“Disque Odéon numero vingt-huit mille six cent soixante-quinze.”

Maigret in Holland Simenon, Georges, 1903- 1993

From the right came the roar of the British batteries, from the left the rolling thunder of the _soixante-quinze_, and every now and then above the turmoil rose a dull boom as a huge howitzer shell burst in the vicinity of Ypres.

New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 April-September, 1915 Various

The French light artillery opened fire in a running pursuit, advancing their guns from position to position with very brief halts, during which the famous soixante-quinze flung out shells upon bodies of troops at close range -- so that they fell like wheat cut to pieces in a hailstorm.

The Soul of the War Philip Gibbs 1919

In the dusk or the darkness there was silence along the banks but for a ceaseless throbbing of distant gun-fire, rising sometimes to a fury of drumming when the French soixante-quinze was at work, outside Roye and the lines beyond Suzanne.

Now It Can Be Told Philip Gibbs 1919

No shells fell among them while I was at the front, and out on the plain where the battle still raged the _soixante-quinze_ batteries were as busy as knitting-machines working some kind of magic which protected that column from tornadoes of the same kind that they themselves were sending.

My Second Year of the War Frederick Palmer 1915

The French infantry was hardly in the first-line German trench when the ditch had been filled in and the way was open for the _soixante-quinze_ to go forward.

My Second Year of the War Frederick Palmer 1915

The life of guns has surpassed all expectations; but the smaller calibers forward and the _soixante-quinze_ must not suffer from general debility when they lay on a curtain of fire to cover a charge.

My Second Year of the War Frederick Palmer 1915

Later, across the road we saw the then new baby _soixante-quinze_ guns for trench work, which were being wheeled about with a merry appreciation of the fact that a battery of father _soixante-quinze_ was passing by at the time.

My Second Year of the War Frederick Palmer 1915

At the start of the war the Germans had the advantage of many mobile howitzers and immense stores of high explosive shells, while the French were dependent on their _soixante-quinze_ and shrapnel; and at this disadvantage the brilliancy of their work with this wonderful field gun on the Marne and in Lorraine was the most important contributory factor in saving France next to the vital one of French courage and organization.

My Second Year of the War Frederick Palmer 1915

French also were attacking; the drumhead fire of their _soixante-quinze_ made a continuous roll, and the puffs of shrapnel smoke hung in a long, gossamery cloud fringing the horizon and the canopy of the green ridges.

My Second Year of the War Frederick Palmer 1915