The first "Gymnastics Festival" (İdman Bayramı) was held at the sport meadow of Kadıköy İttihad Sports (Union Club until 1915) by Erkek Muallim Mektebi (Teachers' College for Boys) with personal enterprise of Selim Sirri Bey (Tarcan),[2] who was the Inspector of the Ministry of Education of the Ottoman Empire at the time.

[3] Selim Sirri Bey had brought a score of the Swedish folk music titled Tre trallande jäntor ("Three carolling girls") and collected by Felix Körling.

[4] This folk music became "Dağ Başını Duman Almış" marşı with Turkish lyrics written by Ali Ulvi Bey (Elöve) in 1917[5] and sung in this festival for the first time.

[6] Fahrî Yâver-i Hazret-i Şehriyâri[dn 1] Mirliva Mustafa Kemal Pasha was assigned as the inspector of the Ninth Army Troops Inspectorate on April 30, 1919,[7] tasked to oversee the disbanding the Ottoman Army required by the Treaty of Sèvres, and left Istanbul with his staff aboard steamer SS Bandırma for Samsun.

[11] Youths sing the national anthem, visit Anıtkabir, recite poems, make parades and sports and realise cultural activities like performing folk dances and play epic drama to commemorate Atatürk and his companions' beginning of the national struggle in 1919 that would lead to the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, in 1923.