The mixed battalion of the Pacific (B.M.P.) is a military infantry unit, created in 1916. The battalion will successively become the battalion of skirmishers of the Pacific then the marching battalion of the Pacific. It was sent to France during the First World War, when it returned to the islands in 1919 it was dissolved. Born as a battalion of skirmishers of the Pacific (B.T.P., formed in Noumea on June 4, 1916), it then became the mixed battalion of the Pacific then the marching battalion of the Pacific in April 1917.
Its contingent was made up of skirmishers, Kanak volunteers (today Kanak) and Polynesians from French settlements in Oceania, living or not in Noumea, hence the name mixed. 300 of them died in the trenches.
On June 3, 1916, a thousand recruits, including 596 Canaque skirmishers, embarked on board the Ganges to join the Front. Their pennant was symbolized by a fruit bat. They fought in Aisne, Oise, Champagne, some also on the Eastern front. 22 Canaques from the Loyalty Islands will even find themselves in Vladivostok in Eastern Siberia on the Kersaint, in charge of an intelligence and espionage mission.