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?