destroy Germany. His arguments had a profound effect on historians, politicians, and the public at large. Despite Keynes' arguments and those by later historians supporting or reinforcing Keynes' views, the consensus of contemporary historians is that reparations were not as intolerable as the Germans or Keynes had suggested and were within Germany's capacity to pay had there been the political will to do so. Following the Second World War, West Germany took up payments. The 1953 London Agreement on German External Debts resulted in an agreement to pay 50 percent of the remaining balance. The final payment was made on 3 October 2010, settling German loan debts in regard to reparations. Background In 1914, the First World War broke out. For the next four years fighting raged across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. On 8 January 1918, United States President Woodrow Wilson issued a statement that became known as the Fourteen Points. In part, this speech called for Germany to withdraw from the territory it had occupied and for the formation of a League of Nations. During the fourth quarter of 1918, the Central Powers began to collapse. In particular, the German military was decisively defeated on the Western Front and the German navy mutinied, prompting domestic uprisings that became known as the German Revolution. Most of the war's major battles occurred in France and the French countryside was heavily scarred in the fighting. Furthermore, in 1918 during the German retreat, German troops devastated France's most industrialized region in the north-east (Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin). Extensive looting took place as German forces removed whatever material they could use and destroyed the rest. Hundreds of mines were destroyed along with railways, bridges, and entire villages. Prime Minister of France Georges Clemenceau was determined, for these reasons, that any just peace required Germany to pay reparations for the damage it had caused. Clemenceau viewed reparations as a way of weakening Germany to ensure it could never threaten France again. His position was shared by the French electorate. Reparations would also go towards the reconstruction costs in other countries, including Belgium, which were also directly affected by the war. Despite domestic pressure for a harsh settlement, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George opposed overbearing reparations. He argued for a smaller sum, which would be less damaging to the German economy with a long-term goal of ensuring Germany would remain a