The president day parade, in the Prussian manner, officially began on September 19, 1896, even through in the late 1880s the parades held at the Field of Mars at O'Higgins Park, thanks to the efforts of the Prussian military mission to Chile under Captain Emil Körner, showed signs of Prussianization and modernization little by little. With the victory in the Chilean Civil War, in which Körner and the pro-modernization officers supported the Congress, the Prussian practice began to be standardized. The parade of 1896 witnessed Chilean Army units parading in the German manner, per companies and troops at first, and later by battalions and squadrons. Two years later, as the German-trained artillery and cavalry made their walk, trot and gallop passes at the tribune one pass at a time, the goose step made its debut in the parade, with the Army NCO School being the first to adopt the practice that would later be the Chilean Army standard by the 1901 parade, which was also the first since conscription was formally introduced. The parade of 1902 was the first in which foreign contingents marched past; in celebration of the recently signed Pacts of May, representatives from the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic marched past at the tribune at the parade field for the first time. Despite the tragedies that happened in 1910 as the nation celebrated its centennial year, the parade that year went on as planned, with Emiliano Figueroa, then acting president, receiving the salute from the units of the army and the navy, in his first parade as chief executive.