How did european countries build empires

This was due to all one little reason. The fact that Germany lost their land, and they actually thought that they owned the land that "they had", which some say that they did own it but others say they did not. But because of this, Europe had the power to take them out, which would not really happen, what happen was the fact that Germany had no power to sustain their land that they supposedly had, and therefore, Europe had much more land to aquire.