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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?
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