This is the basic idea I was working on:
1917:
On May 27th, 1917, thousands of French troops mutinied in the area around Chemin des Dames after the colossal failure of the Second Aisne offensive (fought between 16th April and 9th May, 1917) in which the French forces made a handful of desultory gains for the loss of 118,000 soldiers. It was estimated that around 49 divisions refused to go to the front. Their German counterparts were made aware of the mutiny by patrols who reported whole sections of the French front line positions were deserted. Taking advantage of this, local German commanders launched a local offensive on June 4th and smashed through the French front lines. By June 7th the French GHG at Compiègne had been cut off from Paris. When the Chief of the German General Staff Paul von Hindenburg was notified of this he issued orders for all available German troops to support the offensive.
On June 16th Compiègne fell to the Germans and many senior French commanders were captured. In doing so, the Germans effectively split the Belgian-British forces from the French forces. To complicate matters further for the French, there were only a handful of hastily assembled French divisions standing between the Germans and Paris. Those division fought bravely but were brushed aside by the Germans, who entered the outer suburbs of Paris on June 19th. This caused a widespread panic amongst government officials and the civilian population who began to flee the city.
After heavy fighting in and around the city the Germans reached the centre of Paris on the early morning of June 22nd and raised the Imperial German flag from the Eiffel Tower. The fall of Paris led the new French Prime Minister Alexandre Ribot to send Generals Foch and Joffre to discuss an armistice with their German counterparts. Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg agreed to meet the French in Saint-Germain. This meeting ended with the announcement of a ceasefire that was to take hold from June 27th. This put the Belgians and the British in an untenable situation in France so they, too, agreed to honour the ceasefire.
In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire the ceasefire in France was greeted with relief and these countries agreed to honour it wherever their forces were fighting British or French soldiers. The ceasefire was greeted with dismay in Italy and Russia where the governments of both countries resolved to continue fighting, although it quickly became apparent they were no longer in a position they could win. Austro-Hungarian troops that had been deployed in Greece were now able to be diverted to the Italian front where they achieved several major victories over the Italians before that country agreed to a ceasefire on August 12th.
From July 15th to September 30th, 1917, the Allied Powers and the Central Powers met in Versailles to discuss peace terms. Unlike the Russians on the Eastern Front the Allies were in a much stronger position. All the German colonies, except German East Africa, were in the hands of the British, British Dominion, French or Japanese. The naval blockade of the Allied powers had been relaxed but not lifted and critical food shortages still existed in Germany and there was still the very real fear of civil unrest. As a result the German delegation, represented by the former Chancellor Theobold von Bethmann-Hollweg, was not able to press forward with as many of the demands as he would've liked.
The Belgians and the British made the restoration of an independent Belgium and Luxembourg a condition of their withdrawal from the German colonies in Africa and the Pacific, terms which the Germans were ready to accept with the provisos that Belgian coal fields were placed under German owners, Antwerp was placed under German control as a “Treaty Port” and Belgian Congo transferred to German control. When the Germans offered outright annexation as the alternative the Belgians relented.
The demands placed upon the French were not as harsh. The French had to withdraw from all German colonies and transfer French Morocco to German control. In addition, their armed forces were reduced to 500,000 soldiers in Metropolitan France. Intriguingly, no restrictions were placed on the number of colonial troops the French could have, presumably because the number of soldiers the French could raise in their colonies would not pose a threat to German interests. A demilitarised zone north of the Somme-Oisne-Aisne-Moselle river lines was established to prevent French troops from entering Belgium or Germany.
British and Dominion forces were required to evacuate the German colonies they had seized but no reparations or territorial exchanges were demanded.
The Germans demanded the Portuguese hand over Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique), Portuguese India, Macau and Portuguese West Africa (Angola) to German control but the Americans, British, French and the Portuguese protested the terms were too harsh so the Germans agreed to allow the Portuguese to keep Angola.
The Japanese delegation flatly refused to hand over the German Micronesian territories and Tsingtao believing, correctly, the Germans had no way to force the Japanese to hand over the territories they had seized. As part of the 1922 Washington Conference the question of the Japanese seizure of German territories was resolved.
In addition to these demands all blockades had to be lifted and all subsequent treaties that were signed with other belligerents had to be ratified.
In Russia General Brusilov launched an offensive against the Austro-Hungarian and German armies in Galicia on July 1st and initially made impressive gains, especially against the Austro-Hungarian troops, but the Germans proved much harder to crack. To make matters worse, soldiers often either refused to obey orders or preferred to debate them so by the time the decision was made to carry them out it was too late to be of any use with the result the Russian offensive had ground to a halt by July 16th. The Austro-Hungarian and German armies counter-attacked in July 18th and drove the Russians back as far as the Zbruch River in the Ukraine by around July 23rd. This also brought about the collapse of the Russo-Romanian front.
The Eastern Front remained static until the outbreak of the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917 when the front lines largely collapsed. This led to the resumption of Austro-Hungarian and German operations known as the Bruchmuller Offensive which saw considerable gains against a thoroughly demoralised and divided Russian army. The situation facing the Russians became much worse with Finland breaking away from Russia on November 15th and the Ukrainians proclaiming a republic five days later. Finally, on November 28th, the new Communist regime offered peace terms to the Germans to end the fighting.
1918:
In February 1918 Estonia, Lithuania and the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic (consisting of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia) declared their independence.
On March 3rd, 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk asserted the independence of Belorussia, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania. Poland also became independent. Although the initial governments that were established were appointed by German nobility the regimes were quietly replaced by local nationalists with the tacit approval of the Reichstag who felt that regimes chosen by the local people were more likely to co-operate with the Germans and wouldn’t require the maintenance of a large Occupation army.
While the Communist Revolution played out in Russia and revolutions erupted in various parts of Europe with varying degrees of success the map of Europe was redrawn. The borders of Greece and Serbia were moved back to the same boundaries as they were prior to 1912 with the territories they lost being handed to Bulgaria under the Treaty of Neuilly which was signed on March 12th, 1918. Albania and Montenegro regained their independence with no boundary changes.
Under the Treaty of Bucharest on May 7th, 1918, Romania lost Dobruja to Bulgaria and its oil resources were handed over to the Germans.
In Italy the Austro-Hungarian annexed all of the territory they had lost in 1866 to the Italian state under the Treaty of Saint-Germain which was signed on May 10th, 1918. This triggered off riots throughout Italy that had to be put down by the Italian military. In the areas taken over by the Austro-Hungarian Empire the Austrian army encountered some resistance from nationalists who refused to accept the terms of the Treaty.
The Ottoman Empire did not gain any territory as the result of the armistice it signed with the Allied powers despite their demands for Egypt, Libya and Sudan to be restored to them. This triggered a wave of violence throughout much of Asia Minor as the Turks believed they had made sacrifices for nothing. The lack of any territorial gains was one of the reasons behind the emergence of Mustafa Kemal and the Republican People’s Party.
Although the Austro-Hungarian Empire had been victorious during the War they had began to experience serious internal problems with the emergence of nationalistic demands amongst many of the states for independence. This led to uprisings in Bohemia, Carniola, Moravia, and Slovakia in November 1918 which led to the decision of Charles II to proclaim the decentralisation of the Empire with the creation of nine autonomous federal states: Austria, Bohemia-Moravia, Bukovina, Carniola (renamed Slovenia in 1921), Croatia, Dalmatia, Galicia, Hungary and Venezia. Bosnia-Herzegovina became a joint Austro-Hungarian territory. The Austro-Hungarian monarchies were responsible only for customs, currency, defence and foreign affairs.
What do you think? Credible?