"Why the Bismark chose France is beyond belief as the road back to Norway was open."
This is not hard to understand at all. They wanted BIsmark out in the open oceans doing commerce (convoys) raiding and thats really hard to do from Norway. Their entire strategy from U-boats to Bismark was to strangle England.
Although it happened almost a year later, if you examine the PQ-17 disaster, you see how terrified the Admiralty was of having German Battleships and/or Battle cruisers roaming the open ocean in search of convoys.
Had Bismark made it into the North Atlantic in battle worthy condition the consequences would have been immense and cannot be underestimated. This was 7 months before Pearl Harbor, UK could conceivably have been forced to end the war.
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