Order of redirections

I don't quite understand how the computer reads this command. cat file1 file2 1> file.txt 2>&1 If I understand, 2>&1 simply redirect Standard Error to Standard Output. By that logic, the command reads to me as follows: 1. concatenate files file1 and file2. 2. send stdout from this operation to file.txt. 3. send stderr to stdout. 4. end? I'm not sure what the computer's doing. By my logic, the command should be cat file1 file2 2>&1 > file.txt but this is not correct.