Mandelson's family history - and how he could claim to be the uncrowned King of Poland

To his critics, Lord Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool is Machiavelli in ermine, though few can fault his remarkable ability to survive and prosper. 

He twice resigned from Tony Blair's Cabinet but last month returned to frontline politics for a third time, now serving his former nemesis, Gordon Brown. 

Enemies tangle with the new Business Secretary at their peril, as Shadow Chancellor George Osborne recently discovered after his holiday in Corfu. The other key players in that drama - Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska and banking scion Nat Rothschild - are proof of Mandelson's ability to make powerful friends. 

Where does it come from, this combination of talents and contacts that makes Mandelson the consummate political operator? Could it be in his genes and family history? 

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Mandelson's family has links with powerful Russians stretching back at least two centuries, and he may even be related to the fabulously wealthy Rothschilds themselves. 

Indeed, the history of the Mandelsons encompasses a swashbuckling colonel who fought for the Russians against Napoleon, a revolutionary who turned against Moscow, and a family fortune built on diamonds, rubies and opals. 

However, as with most matters connected with the Prince of Darkness, close scrutiny of the Mandelson lineage reveals a shadowy web from which it is sometimes difficult to unpick the truth. 

It is Lord Mandelson's distant Australian cousin, John Mandelson, who has kept alive the flame of the family history. 

John, 80, who lives in Sydney, says: 'I wrote to Peter twice, but the b***** never bothered to reply. I wanted to tell him about our history, but clearly he is not interested. Perhaps it is time he paid attention.' 

John and Peter Mandelson share a common ancestor in Nathan Mandelson, who was born in Warsaw around 1800 when it was part of the Russian Empire. Nathan would go on to make his fortune in Australia. 

According to family history, Nathan - Peter Mandelson's great-great-grandfather - was the son of Polish Jew Naphtali Felthusen. Felthusen was a colonel in the 13th Polish Lancers and fought with the Russian 1st Army against Napoleon's invading French forces in 1812. 

For his bravery in battle, Felthusen was awarded a coat of arms by the King of Poland, but he was killed in a skirmish as the French retreated across the River Niemen, in modern-day Lithuania, later that year. 

Nathan, however, rebelled against the Russian yoke and became involved in the 1825 Decembrist plot to overthrow Tsar Nicholas I. His reward, according to family tradition, was to be declared King of Poland for a day. 

When the Tsarist secret police began hunting the plotters, Nathan fled, making his way to England in 1829. 

The irony of Peter Mandelson, once a member of the Young Communist League, becoming notorious for enjoying the generous hospitality of the rich and powerful would surely not be lost on his colourful ancestors.

On arrival, he changed his surname to Mandelson to throw Imperialist secret agents off his scent.

Forced to earn his passage to England, Nathan had worked as a baker, a trade in which he made great use of almonds, or 'mandel' in German. He had cooked up a unique family name. 

In 1830, Nathan married Phoebe, daughter of Jacob Levy Cohen, of Leicester. The Leicester Cohens were related to a woman named Hannah Cohen who married Nathan Mayer. 

Mayer would go on to found a banking dynasty and become the first Lord Rothschild - giving Peter Mandelson a family link to the Rothschild clan and, by extension, to Karl Marx, who was related to them. 

Three years after marrying, Nathan and Phoebe decided to carve out a new life in Australia. They moved to Goulburn, New South Wales, where Nathan established a hotel and became a successful businessman. 

Their eldest son, Levy, great-grandfather of Peter, would eventually move back to Britain, while another son, Joseph, John Mandelson's grandfather, stayed in Australia. 

John Mandelson says: 'With that the two branches of the family lost contact. It was only during the Second World War that Norman Mandelson, Levy's son and the grandfather of Peter, made contact with my father and the two branches were reunited. 

'We used to send Norman and his family food parcels, including tins of beef dripping. After the war we kept in contact and my late sister met up with Norman when she went over for the Queen's Coronation in 1953. We have pictures of Norman and Peter's father George, both as a boy and an officer in the British Army. 

'In 1956 my father went over to meet Norman but when he arrived he discovered that Norman had died. He met George who had no time for my father because he was a "bloody colonial". After that we lost contact.' 

John also has pictures of a young Levy Mandelson, whose dandy clothes and saturnine features echo those of Lord Mandelson himself. 

Extensive searches of records in both Poland and Russia unearthed no trace of the Felthusens, but Polish Jewish records were largely destroyed during the Second World War. 

There are, however, records of Polish lancers serving with the Russians, and of Russian forces clashing with Napoleon's army at the River Niemen, where family history has it that Colonel Felthusen was killed. 

Joachim Russek, an expert in Polish Jewish history and head of the Judaica Foundation in Krakow, says: 'It is certainly plausible that you could have had a Polish Jewish officer in the Russian forces. 

'But the "king for a day" story confuses Jewish myth with family history. Polish kings used to be elected and when one of the first kings fled the throne, the legend of people being elected king for a day took shape. 

'In family history there is a tendency to exaggerate. People rarely admit their grandfather was a cobbler - they would rather claim he was a chief rabbi.' 

Indeed, it isn't the first discrepancy in the Mandelsons' illustrious lineage. Nathan's involvement with the Decembrists seems unlikely, given their anti-Semitism, but another family version has him involved simply in an unspecified anti-Russian plot. 

The coat of arms also remains shrouded in mystery. Polish heraldry expert Wlodek Lesiecki was unable to find the Mandelson family crest in the records, but believes it could be genuine.

'It doesn't look like a modern creation because too much care has gone into it,' he says. 'It looks as if the original was hand-painted.'

The Australian part of the story is easier to confirm. Records show that a Levy Mandelson was a merchant in New South Wales in the 1850s, making a fortune dealing in precious stones.

He left the area in the 1870s and appears in the 1881 British census at a smart address in Kensington, West London.

At the time of his death in 1891, wealthy Levy could boast knights of the realm among his neighbours - an achievement that his great-grandson Peter, with his fondness for expensive property in West London, must surely be proud of.

Levy's son Norman became financial advertising manager of the Jewish Chronicle between the wars. His son George, known as Tony, became the Chronicle's advertising director.

Tony was also known as a sharp dresser with an even sharper tongue. After a failed first marriage, he enchanted Mary, the daughter of Labour Deputy Prime Minister Herbert Morrison. They married and had two sons - Miles and Peter.

The irony of Peter Mandelson, once a member of the Young Communist League, becoming notorious for enjoying the generous hospitality of the rich and powerful would surely not be lost on his colourful ancestors. Nor would the family motto: Omnia Desuper or Everything From Above. continues here

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