Cámara's relief squadron reaches the Red Sea too late

Pelayo and Emperor Carlos V might individually have challenged Dewey's cruisers if fully worked up, but neither was ready when war began. Spain assembled a bespoke mixture of ships pulled from construction, reconstruction, and merchant service without common equipment or trained personnel to transfer between them. An earlier proposal to bombard Charleston and reinforce the Caribbean was abandoned. The Philippine threat alone caused Washington to reinforce the Philippines with ten thousand troops and two monitors while its battleships stayed focused on Cervera. American agents bought available coal at Suez, while Britain invoked Egyptian neutrality to deny Cámara's force local coaling. The squadron reached the Red Sea only as Cervera's destruction freed American heavy ships and Washington threatened Spain itself, prompting Madrid to recall the squadron. In this interpretation, actually sending the threatened American squadron could have encouraged Germany to organize European resistance and Britain to intervene rather than let Berlin lead it.