What if no German Unrestricted Sub Warfare, Zimmerman Note intercept, US DoW on Germany in 1917?

2. Your facts are hard it seems, but the quotes of famous people... they might have exaggerated a bit.

As for a suggestion: Couldn't the Brits and French sell some colonies in the Americas and the Pacific to the US to pay?

After 1916 submarines, mines, coastal artillery, and naval aviation were the German Navy's only effective weapons in the West. Had these assets been directed against the BEF's lines of communications (LOCs) in the Channel in coordination with a focused attack ground attack against the BEF's rail network, the British might well have been forced to withdraw from the Continent. The German submarine threat against their sea LOCs was a constant concern to the British, and one of the objectives behind the bloody battle of Passchendaele was to clear the Channel coast of the U-boat bases.​
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German mines in the Channel could have been delivered by air or by submarine. The Navy's Freidreichshafen bomber was capable of carrying and dropping 750-kilogram naval mines. One such mine, in fact, sank a Russian destroyer during the Baltic Islands operation. Submarines were the other way to lay mines, with the UC-class boats specifically designed as minelayers. Most of the UC-boats carried 18 mines. The U-class boats were fleet submarines that fired torpedoes; but in 1918 the Germans launched ten of the Project 45 fleet U-boats that could lay 42 mines through their torpedo tubes and carry an additional 32 mines in deck containers.​
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By the start of 1918, the Germans had 42 operational fleet U-boats; 66 operational coastal U-boats (UB-class); and 33 operational UC-class minelayers. During 1918 they built an additional 25 U-class (including the Project 45 boats); 47 UB-class; and 16 UC-class. The British, of course, had the Channel heavily mined, which increased the hazards of any U-boat operations. Mines caused 27 percent of the total German U-boat losses. Of the total of 53 UC type U-boats the Germans lost during the war, 19 were lost to mines. The Germans, nonetheless, had a capability to lay mines in the Channel and at least disrupt that leg of the BEF's LOCs. On 14 February 1918, the German Navy did launch one major and largely successful surface raid against British defenses between Dover and Calais. The Heinecke Torpedo Boat Flotilla sunk 28 British picket ships and other vessels, including an older cruiser. That raid, however, was never followed up. Nor had it been coordinated with OHL, rather it had been launched at the request of the Naval Corps in Flanders. Even after the failure of Operation MICHAEL in March 1918, General Ferdinand Foch still thought that increased submarine operations in the Channel posed a serious threat to cutting off the BEF. ​
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Finally, German naval artillery could have been turned against the BEF's channel ports. The three so-called Paris Guns (Wilhelmgeschütze) were actually manned by naval crews. With a maximum range of 127 kilometers, they had the reach to hit the BEF's three primary northern Channel ports (Boulogne, Calais, and Dunkirk) and even Dover, if the guns had been positioned in the Fourth Army sector. But between 16 and 30 March 1918, during 140 Operation MICHAEL, they did not fire in support of the attacking Seventeenth, Second, or Eighteenth Armies. Rather, the guns were positioned in the Seventh Army sector, delivering pointless terrorizing fire against Paris.​
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At least two German coastal batteries in Flanders were capable of hitting Dunkirk and could have fired in support of ground forces during Operation GEORGETTE. But Batterie Deutschland (four 3 80mm guns) never fired against land targets, and Batterie Pommern (one 380mm gun) delivered only occasional fire against Dunkirk and the major British base at Poperinghe. A third battery, Batterie Tirpitz (four 280mm guns), had the range to hit targets in the northern quarter of the Ypres Salient, but it too never fired in support of ground operations.​

The BEF was far less fortunate with the rail network in its sector. The British position in Flanders had no depth at all. North of the Somme, the British front lines averaged only about 90 kilometers from the coast. Rail was the BEF's primary means of moving supplies and troops from the ports. The rail network was adequate at best, with most of the lines running east-west. By 1916, the British had to operate 250 trains per day to keep the supplies moving along an overstrained rail system. The entire British transportation system was on the verge of collapse until Sir Eric Geddes was brought in to reorganize it at the end of 1916. In April 1918, during the last phases of Operation MICHAEL and during Operation GEORGETTE, the British ran 725 ammunition trains to their front. "​