Viable alternate German strategies in early 1918?

So... the Spring Offensives / Kaiserschlacht of March - July 1918 achieved some impressive tactical victories for the German army and knocked the British and French around pretty badly, but were ultimately a strategic disaster leaving depleted and exhausted German forces defending huge untenable salients with ever dwindling troop numbers and military resources.

Lets say Ludendorff has a flash of (near-ASB?) insight during the general staff planning conferences over winter 1917-18 and decides that a final massive throw of the dice on the western front is too risky. What are some alternative and potentially more profitable uses of the 50-some German divisions made newly available by the Russian armistice and subsequent Treaty of Brest-Litovsk? ( the first option that occurs to me is standing on the defensive in the West in early 1918 with modest reinforcements, whilst deploying the bulk of the newly released divisions to the Austro-Italian front, essentially an alternative Spring Offensive designed to knock Italy out of the war quickly; the second is a massively reinforced defensive strategy on the Western Front in combination with proposals for a "white peace" with the remaining Entente powers: 1914 borders in the west with no annexations or indemnities, Germany concedes loss of its overseas colonies to Britain, France and Japan, Entente powers to recognize Brest-Litovsk - that sort of thing. Maybe throw in a temporary suspension of the U-Boat campaigns in the Atlantic and Med as a goodwill gesture while the proposals are being relayed via neutral intermediaries. Probably ASBish since it requires Ludendorff to abandon his cherished hopes of keeping war gains in the west, but might appeal to the civilian elements of the German government...)

Thoughts, ideas, alternatives?
 
With the backing of the Entente by the US, any delay is going to be fatal to the Germans. The US will have time to get more troops over and train them, and then the fifty Eastern Front divisions aren't going to make a lot of difference in the end, given the huge internal dissent and shortages of food and strategic materials in Germany thanks to the blockade.

In terms of pace: the French would want Alsace-Lorraine back, and Britain and the United States were both also rather pissed off with Germany for other reasons (bombing of civilians, supposed atrocities in Belgium, unresticted submarine warfare). So I'm not sure if a 'white peace' would be accepted.
 
In terms of pace: the French would want Alsace-Lorraine back, and Britain and the United States were both also rather pissed off with Germany for other reasons (bombing of civilians, supposed atrocities in Belgium, unresticted submarine warfare). So I'm not sure if a 'white peace' would be accepted.

Oh certainly, the stumbling blocks for such a peace would be huge. That being said there were definite pro-peace elements in the German government and I can see them (somewhat delusionally) perhaps believing that France might accept German colonies in lieu of Alsace-Lorraine, and that Britain and France might be willing to "do business".
 
Germany was also beginning to starve as I recall, meaning that those troops would do much good sitting there even if the Americans weren't coming.
 
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