Couldn't the Germans trade the land they hold in France for Alsace Lorraine or wherever it was they were after in France as well as their African and Pacific colonies.
I mean Germany has it's hands in France and the French army is on the brink of revolt, I think Germany could get whatever they want. But that's just me.
Sure, but is hard to get something one side does not see as a big loss. Negotiate deal is easy. Fair is very near impossible.
The problem is the parties with the colonies will not want to give them back. Japan starts making demands on China right after Tsingtao falls. You likely can't get these back with a war with Japan. Or at the very minimum permanently breaking the Anglo-Japanese alliance and turning Japan into a perpetual enemy of the UK. Now it endup that way IOTL, but I have not seen where people saw it coming. South Africa, Australia and NZ are dominions. Maybe not 100% free, but you can't assume compliance. By 1923, Canada refused to back England in war with Turkey. So it is between hard to impossible for the UK leadership to give Germany back the colonies. And a step harder for France to put enough pressure on England to force Japan to do something.
So now lets look at a deal. Germany has to have not only something equal to its original colonies, but has to gain. Tsingtao was the prestige colony, so it will take a big chunk of Africa to make up for it. Probably something at least as large as British East Africa or Nigeria. This is a big problem, but lets assume for discussion that the UK both is willing to give up British East Africa and Germany is willing to accept as fair for Pacific losses. Now the next part is the easy part, the only easy part. Belgium Congo for Belgium.
Now to France. You want the prewar lines back. Germany has to get something big. It takes a lot of African square miles to make up for one square mile in Europe. Algeria is off the table. Germany has hugely valuable industrial zone in France, and needs something of value. Maybe French Equitorial Africa plus IndoChina is enough, but this means we have huge French loss. And likely German public feels cheated. Now once the countries are tired enough, they will take a deal. Hard to see how it works without a long war to make a peace by exhaustion. The problem is the huge losses. By the end of the first year (winter 1915/16), all sides has losses greater than Napoleonic wars or at least seen as greater.