What if Italy was knocked out by Caporetto?

Let’s say things go worse for Italy at Caporetto. Italy acts less decisive at crucial moments or have a variety of people do some incredibly stupid or unlucky things worse than the OTL. Italy gets 465,000 captured instead of 265,000, or something very bad. The Central Powers decide to act quickly and offer Italy a relatively generous (separate from Western Allies) peace which gets accepted by a panicked Italian government.

So the second biggest front for 1918 gets knocked out.

A bad winter is coming up for the CPs and it is too late to do much about that, I think. Austria’s Army is kind of trashed, but still exists. Austria can send man power to their domestic economy, to the Western Front, or to the Balkans.

How would the CPs likely use their newly freed resources? How effective would it be? And what would likely be the optimum strategy?

Also, would this encourage the WAs to accept or offer a peace if they lose Italy in addition to Russia in such a small amount of time?

How do you see things playing out?
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
If the Central Powers had managed to inflict such a defeat on Italy before the American declaration of war, it is likely that Italy would have exited the war. But after the American DoW, it would take more than just Caporetto, even if Caporetto ends up even worse. They would have to follow it up with a victory at Monte Grappa.
 
If the Central Powers had managed to inflict such a defeat on Italy before the American declaration of war, it is likely that Italy would have exited the war. But after the American DoW, it would take more than just Caporetto, even if Caporetto ends up even worse. They would have to follow it up with a victory at Monte Grappa.

Let’s say they score the knock out blow.
 
Had USA stay neutral in WW1 (or enter war later as OTL),
it's very likely that Italy had offer separate peace agreement to Germans and Austrian-Hungary.
After battle of Caporetto the Italian government could fled to city of Naples, in fear of next German offensive would reach Rome.
 
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