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Here is my scenario here: Hindenburg and Ludendorff (H & L) decide to delay the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare (USW) on the U.S. in January 1917. Since Russia descends into revolution shortly afterwards, H & L decide to completely scrap their plans to resume USW. A year later, after the Bolshevik Revolution occurs in Russia, Germany acquires massive Eastern European territories in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. While the 1918 German Spring offensive still fails (in part due to H & L's inability to think well in strategic terms), the lack of U.S. involvement in WWI causes Germany to acquire a peace treaty which is more-or-less based on a status quo ante bellum in the West in exchange for Germany acquiring a free hand in the East.

After the end of WWI, H & L focus on consolidating their new Eastern European empire. This is especially evident in the new United Baltic Duchy (Latvia + Estonia), where H & L get a bunch of ethnic Germans from both Germany (primarily consisting of German WWI veterans and German hyper-nationalists) and Russia to settle there (specifically on the land that the ethnically German Baltic Barons donated for ethnic German settlement). Also, after the end of WWI, H & L march onto Russia and overthrow the Bolsheviks only to withdraw afterwards and allow the White forces to fight it out among themselves.

In regards to the economy, Germany's economy is in pretty good shape in the 1920s--after Germany's success in WWI. However, an economic crisis in the U.S. at the end of the 1920s (or at the start of the 1930s) reverberates across Europe and causes Germany's economy to significant deteriorate. Thankfully for Germany, though, H & L (and their successors--after all, H & L are already getting quite old by this point in time) initiate a program of massive military increases as well as Autobahn construction in order to stimulate the German economy. However, this economic improvement only continues for several years and Germany's economy once again implodes in the early 1940s (in part due to the lack of stimulus spending to reinvigorate German domestic industries).

As a result of this economic downturn, a massive number of Germans begin protesting. Afterwards, when the German military leadership orders German troops to fire on these protesters, many German troops mutiny against their leadership and instead join these protests. These protests keep increasing and quickly transform into a revolutionary movement which overthrows the old regime (figurehead Kaiser + German military in charge) in Germany and establishes a socialist-leaning republic in Germany in its place.

Anyway, what exactly do Britain, France, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia do in response to this revolution in Germany? Also, what exactly do Germany's various Eastern European puppet states do in response to this revolution in Germany?

Any thoughts on all of this?
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