The Gold-Exchange Standard Collapsed in 1931 When "Hard Money" France Attempted to Cash in Its Sterling Balances for Gold

The point of the gold-exchange standard is that it cannot last; the piper must eventually be paid, but only in a disastrous reaction to the lengthy inflationary boom. As sterling balances piled up in France, the United States, and elsewhere, the slightest loss of confidence in the increasingly shaky and jerry-built inflationary structure was bound to lead to general collapse. This is precisely what happened in 1931; the failure of inflated banks throughout Europe, and the attempt of "hard money" France to cash in its sterling balances for gold, led Britain to go off the gold standard completely. Britain was soon followed by the other countries of Europe.

--Murray N. Rothbard, What Has Government Done to Our Money? (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2010), 96.

The Classical Gold Standard Broke Down Because People Trusted Government Promises

If the classical gold standard worked so well, why did it break down? It broke down because governments were entrusted with the task of keeping their monetary promises, of seeing to it that pounds, dollars, francs, etc., were always redeemable in gold as they and their controlled banking system had pledged. It was not gold that failed; it was the folly of trusting government to keep its promises. To wage the catastrophic war of World War I, each government had to inflate its own supply of paper and bank currency. So severe was this inflation that it was impossible for the warring governments to keep their pledges, and so they went “off the gold standard,” i.e., declared their own bankruptcy, shortly after entering the war.

--Murray N. Rothbard, What Has Government Done to Our Money? (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2010), 92.