I think you'll find Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian finances were pretty shaky. Turkey was known as the "sick man of Europe" for a reason. U.S. T-bills would have been almost as good as the Bank of England :-) I'd point out that the UK defaulted (for some values of defaulted) in 1931-2 and stopped payments in forex on some war debts.

Mexico defaulted (kindasorta) in the 90s without having any more violence than Mexican politics tends to involve. Russia defaulted on the GKO bonds in 1998, without any more violence than post-Soviet politics tends to involve.