We’ll never know. They had the upper hand for most of the war, occupying territory in allied countries while those allies grabbed their colonies. The status quo favored them.
When the US entered the war, France asked for only men; they had no shortage of weapons, but had lost much of a whole generation of men. Many of those remaining were refusing to fight, and were only whipped into shape by Petain’s executions. Germany would encounter those problems a year later, but in 1917 they were OK.
The manner in which that war ended made Hitler’s conspiracy theories credible to most Germans; they surrendered while still occupying most of Belgium and part of France, after beating Russia and Serbia. It was impossible to convince them they’d lost “fair and square”, and when Hitler blamed the labor unrest/”general strike” in 1918 on communists (led by Jews) it seemed more palatable to the average German than accepting they’d simply lost on their own merits (and failures).