(I've been lurking for quite some time, and I have not seen this particular subject discussed; if I've missed a thread please point me to it.)
POD is that sometime between 6-April-1918 (the US declaration of war) and 8-August-1918 (start of the Hundred Days Offensive / Battle of Amiens), the Allied Powers decide that unconditional surrender of all the Central Powers will be required. Not only do Wilson and House (his foreign policy adviser) want this in order to more easily apply the 14 Points, but to show those Bolsheviks that future military adventurism isn't going to be tolerated.
As I understand it, by November 1918 France and Britain wanted to keep going but Wilson/House twisted their arms so that the Armistice could occur by 11 November (so the real POD here may be Wilson deciding to apply the Civil War thinking that a "real" peace won't occur without an unconditional surrender).
However, even with the unconditional surrender, its likely that the Allied Powers still impose the onerous Treaty of Versailles (or worse).
- Does Europe still get partitioned the same way as OTL?
- How about the Levant? Does the Ottoman Empire still collapse?
- What happens elsewhere (Russia? US?)
- And the big question: between being curbed-stomped in "the war to end all wars" on the one hand, but still getting hammered by the Treaty of Versailles on the other, what does Germany do?