From the moment Napoleon placed an imperial crown on his own head in 1804, Europeans began to see themselves as imperial peoples. The French and the Germans both saw Europe as an area for imperial expansion, while the British maintained their own empire around the world. By the end of the century the states of Europe had developed a colonial hold over every continent in the world - even the polar ones.
19th-century Europeans had an idea of themselves that was quite different from that of their forebears. They came to see themselves not only as technologically superior to other peoples, but morally and culturally superior. They ruled and exploited other areas of the globe not only because they needed to and because they could, but because they felt a sense of duty to do so.
It was no coincidence that the great age of European colonial expansion came at the end of the 19th century, when the Europeans had developed their concept of nationalism and the nation state: the possession of colonial territory - any territory - came to be seen as essential for any people seeking to be accepted as a nation in the eyes of its peers, even if it were to prove of limited economic or strategic worth (why else should the French and Spanish want to control the Sahara desert?)
But the concept of Empire sank deeper into the European psyche. It was internalised so that it soon came to be accepted as ‘natural’ that Europeans should control other peoples; from there it was inevitable that Empire should encourage the development of ideas of racial differences and hierarchies. As Empire fed the European sense of innate moral and racial superiority, so it also fed rivalries among the Europeans themselves. By 1914 imperial rivalries and tensions had contributed in large part to the continent’s disastrous descent into European war - and, thanks to Empire, the European states dragged the whole world down with them.
