3rd Finnish Guards' Rifle Battalion /Henkikaartin 3. Suomen Tarkk’ampujapataljoona/Livgardets 3:e finska skarpskyttebataljon/Лейб-гвардии 3-й стрелковый Финский батальон/ colloquially known as Guard of Finland /Suomen kaarti/Finska gardet/ was a Finnish military unit during 1829–1905 based in Helsinki. Continuing the legacy of Finnish Training Battalion (1817), it was part of the Imperial Russian Army and the only Finnish unit of the Russian Imperial Guard. Furthermore, for large parts of its history, the battalion was the only operational Finnish military unit.
The Finnish Guards' Battalion participated in four campaigns outside Finland. Two of these included actual combat: first in 1831 during the Polish November Uprising and for the second time, in the Balkans front of the Russo-Turkish War. The most famous of the battles it participated in was the battle of Gorni Dubnik in 1877. The unit was also deployed in 1849 to assist in quelling the Hungarian Uprising and later during the Crimean War to guard the western border of Russia. However, it did not engage in action during these deployments. During times of peace, the battalion was responsible for guard duty in Helsinki and participated annually in the Russian military exercises in Krasnoye Selo.
The Polish Uprising 1831
The first combat deployment of the battalion was to the campaign to defeat the Polish November Uprising in 1831. In Finland, the mobilization of the battalion was met in the press and within the battalion with positivity and pride. The battalion left Finland on the 12 of January with a force of 746 men, marching by foot to Saint Petersburg and, in March, all the way to Poland. The battalion received its baptism of fire in the beginning of the April, together with other imperial forces and Finnish soldiers quickly got a reputation as good marksmen. The mission of the battalion was to evict Polish forces from the area between the Bug and Narew rivers, at the same time as the main Russian Forces were fighting in the south. During May the battalion had to execute a fighting retreat as a result of the effective Polish counter offensive, all the way to Białystok. After that, it joined the Russian Army in Ostrołęka, which marched the long way from the west in order to cross over the Vistula and to attack Warsaw from the west. From 6 to 8 September 1831 the guards riflemen joined the Imperial forces that took Warsaw. The battalion spent the winter of 1831-32 in Biržai in Latvia, before returning to Helsinki. They lost only ten men in combat, including one officer. However, as many as 399 men died due to illnesses and epidemics on the front.
After the November Uprising, on 18 December 1831, Russian Emperor Nicholas I presented the battalion with the Saint George's Guards Colour with the honorific "In honour of the defeating the Polish uprising in 1831" surrounding the emblem of the battalion in honor of the services rendered in the campaign. The same flag was in use until its disbandment.
