The first army officer school in Finland, then part of Sweden, was Haapaniemen sotakoulu [fi], which was founded by Georg Magnus Sprengtporten in 1780 in Kuopio and relocated to Rantasalmi in 1781.

Initially, it was established to train officers for the Savo Brigade of the Swedish Army, but soon it began to recruit cadets from all of Finland.

The school continued operation even after the Finnish War in 1809, where Finland was ceded to the Russian Empire.

It was abolished on July 24, 1903[1] under the influence of various orders given during the first period of repression of Finland by the Russian Empire.

In 2001, the Maanpuolustusopisto (a military junior college) in Lappeenranta was decommissioned, but the school was immediately repurposed to provide freshman and army training for the National Defence University, as the Army Academy (Finnish: Maasotakoulu, "Land Warfare School").