As part of a project I am working on as well as my own curiosity, I am wondering if the Austria-Hungary could survive if the Central Powers maange to win (albeit barely) around the middle or late 1917?
From what I got, Austria-Hungary was slowly going down the crapper with morale and so on. While a victory could allieviate things, some of the stuff coming out of the woodworks looked like it was going too much for it.
Some background: As a result of certain event, France gets the sauce beaten out of them in Verdun which us what starts the domino effect in the Central Powers leaving. France ends up the first to surrender (though they do it in a particular way; more or less giving the Central Powers the French colonial empire as a way to a circumvent payment). Russia leaves soon after the Feburary Revolution (so no USSR rises since the Provisional Government and Petrograd Soviets eventually co-exist) and Britain more or less makes an armistice between them and the Central Powers.
I reckon this would be at earliest middle 1917 and latest... maybe early 1918 (US never enters the war mind you?)
So, what would happen to A-H? While it's possible they could reform to maintain itself, what's the likelihood they would do such things in the first place (the Spanish Flu is still around to ruin everyone's day).