So you're saying if the Germans had continued to misbehave, the British and French would have joined the Americans in slapping them down or that the British and French would forcibly separate the two sides?
Also, the talk of removing Kaiser Wilhelm is interesting. Could you elaborate more?
Could be either. It depends on how both sides react. Should the Americans act professionally, but in trouble, almost certainly they would have temporarily joined Dewey's fleet, I guess. Lots of sources say that the many national Fleets took up anchor and sailed from China/Hong Kong to see what was happening. Only the Germans were troublesome beyond any minor degree, but it was a nervous situation for all Americans then due to numbers. But increasinly the British and always for the French post Franco-Prussian war, the political situation was ripe for this kind of decisive action. Papers in France were not supportive of the action against Spain, but most certainly were against Germany.
It could have happened that the British and French would have forcibly placed themselves inbetween shots and said "I dare you", and then asked the Americans if they wish to intermix ships completely and provoking a multination incident if a shot lands on the wrong ship. That should have shut the Germans up real quick, as no one gets to Admiral rank without some kind of political sense, Corpus Callosum aside. But since we are speculating about personalities long since gone, the general tempo of the officer class then will have to do. Germans did not have a long set and tempered naval officer class, so were potentially more erratic, the French and English did have long traditions. Prussia was a land power, and Austria had much longer tradtions for the Adriatic exposure. (Lord Mountbatten's father, who joined the British Fleet from Prince consort Albert's Saxe Coburg I think, was asked after Germany joined together why he had done so. "When I joined, there was no Germany, much less a fleet.")
I read this stuff about 20 years ago, and many were books printed about the turn of the last century, soon after the fracas. Dusty old library books, which I find often have some really detailed accounts. Also commentary of 1930-1950 historians. Not much interest in the subject now of Manila, WWI being much more commonplace.
Unfortunately, I am pretty much at my comfort limits. I do remember an authoress published about 1983 who was sort of famous but the name escapes me (not Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August, but some one like her or another book of hers) writing an assessment and research that in those prewar days the Germans were actually just as honest and upright and witty as British top officers were, but not so well schooled in how to present themselves for the public international newspapers. Political dinosaur Officers like Smedley Bulter or Chesty Puller at times. The Kaiser and some politics were a problem, and the bully factor was existing, but this seems a circa 1898 situation with natural present reptilian officers of any navy saying pretty much what the powers that be want, so to punch the ticket of an officer advancement card, as an unchecked and on steroids modus operundi.
From what I get the impression of, the years 1890 (after the Kaiser booted out the adult supervision of Bismarck) till 1908 were the worst. After that the Kaiser mellowed somewhat till he really did apparently say at 1914 that it is time to "take the plunge" [into a world war] by an almost a flippant way. The earliest years were a fun time of adrenaline rants and harranges (as the Boil on the Kaisers Bum -- Helgoland/German East Africa Thread may have touched upon), to some advantage for Germany. A man name Hitler was accepted in large part 1920-40 because the older in the audience had heard Kaiser publically or read in print of earlier goings off the deep end historonically.