The best European conquerors were the Russians,Portuguese, Brits and Spanish in that order -- even those who hated them like the Irish or Indians -- grudgingly took some of their standards as their own (* in Russia's case, note that this is actually the empire of Muscowy and it conquered the Finnic lands to the north and conquered the other Rus lands to the south and west and then conquered Kazan, Astrakhan, Crimea from the Tartars - or as some say assimilated with the Tartars and then conquered the native peoples of Siberia -- they still rule their empire)
The French were mediocre and the worst were the Dutch and Belgians -- their former colonies hate them for the utter rape of these lands