Very good points here. I'd add the whole of Galicia to Poland, though.
That would let Austria-Hungary get rid of a few nationalities. However, the Polish were quite calm, politically. Cisleithania might soon miss them.
Considering Austrian gains: letting them have Serbia is a standard proposal in AH - but is it really sensible to make that land an integral part of your country you had the most problems with? I'd rather have Serbia as a puppet, after redistributing parts of it to Bulgaria and Albania just to weaken Serbia.
My thinking was that the Austrians would want no more Serb problem, and I"m not sure they'd actually want the land.
I am divided on this topic. You are absolutely right, although I am not sure if they wouldn't try to pull off an annexation. The motivation wouldn't be expansion in itself, but rather to end Serbian irredentism. Serbia can rather easily be made a scapegoat to exculpate ALL the great powers. It would fit in well on a map, so to say. And if you have the ability to turn the Croatian crown into a 3rd one, you can end up with one of the typical AH situations where one nationality is placated (and occupied) with dominating another one (Italians->Croats in Küstenland, Polish->Ruthenes,Ukrainians in Galicia, Hungarians->Romanians,Slovaks in Transleithania), i.e. we would basically have a kind of reversed Yugoslavia as part of Austria-Hungary, just with the Serbs on bottom instead of on top.
An interesting idea would be if AH gains Romania (maybe plus parts of Bessarabia) and makes Romania a third crown after partition of Transylvania between Hungary and Romania. The whole exchange then eliminates the Poles and Ukrainians from AH and makes the Germans, the Hungarians (plus Croats) and the Romanians the core people, greatly improving the balance of minorities. And it provides great strategical gains with the whole Danube and the Ploesti oil in AH hands. Question is, though, whether this could be achieved by negotiation...
Romania was on the Austrian list...and it is tempting to rule almost the whole Danube...
But as you said, we talk about a negotiated peace and I think that Serbia is the maximum Austria can push through for annexation. I don't remember clearly, but was Romania even belligerent in this scenario?
Yeah, those are quite fair points. I had worries along those lines myself.
Maybe the Germans get some French colonies or compensation in exchange for not eviscerating France territorially? I could see the French having a demilitarized zone enforced.
I think you are right here, although I would put it slightly differently. The demilitarized zone would rather mean a slow-paced German withdrawal. We have to bear in mind, it is a negotiated peace without a clear defeat of either side, but with occupying Northern France is the one big bonus point Germany has on its hands. They won't be gone in four weeks time. I imagine a long timetable...
And considering the colonies, I would rather talk about handing the Germans back their lost ones, in that case Cameroon and Togo.
Ottomans would want some war spoils also. I can see Bulgaria and the Ottomans divvying up the Balkans, maybe with Austrian minor concessions to Bulgaria so they would be a viable buffer state, and it being unpleasant for the wrong minorities.
That is their problem. I am quite sure that in such a scenario they will end up as the dissatisfied winner, a bit like OTL-Italy. An Ottoman comeback in Europe
is something nobody would support; and where would the Ottomans go? An enlarged Albanian puppet, as recently suggested, might make sense. They might get to try regaining Aegean islands from Italy and Crete.
With the Arabian regions, the problem is similar to the German colonies. The CP will have problems to challenge the British position there. And if they get to agree with Britain that they withdraw to Egypt and Kuwait, you can be sure that Arab nationalism will be well-supplied with weapons once the British left...
The interesting question is whether the situation permits to give them compensation in the Russian empire.
I do think some US influence would be needed to get the Germans to accept reasonable terms. I think the US would want peace and may try to broker it if they fear British loan default, especially if the Germans sink a US ship by mistake even with restricted warfare. Even with collateral, I do think the US would fear default enough to at least try to negotiate peace. Wilson would probably go for that, and I don't think the American voters would hate it politically, especially if there is a recession and a risk defaults would make it worse.
Very good idea, and I think the scenario allows for a comparatively large amount of German good will.