Problem understanding merge

[Jonathan Gossage]

It looks as if I do not properly understand how merge is intended to work,

I have a work flow that I am attempting to implement with Bazaar. I was 
doing this work flow completely by hand prior to Bazaar.

I start with a branch A. Once A is initially populated, a branch B is 
created from A. Files from outside are added to B, some replacing files 
from A and some new files. Finally a branch C is created from B and 
populated in the same way B was.

With the initial conditions established, I add a new file X to A and 
commit it. I then try to merge branch A into B, expecting that the file 
X will be merged from A into B. However merge says that there is nothing 
to do and does precisely that! In the general case a file entering at A 
may be new or may replace an older version. When a file in A is replaced 
it should be merged with the corresponding file in B. Once the file from 
B has been updated from A, additional manual changes may be made and 
finally the file from B should be merged into C.

The flow is always that files enter the system at A and flow through to 
C. There is never any merging back into parent branches.

This editing work is done in a working repository. once things are 
working properly, the files are deployed from C.

In addition to the working repository, there is a local master 
repository on the same computer as the working repository as well as a 
master publishing repository on a server. once work is deployed, these 
repositories need to be updated.

I would be most grateful if anyone can give me some suggestions on how 
to implement this work flow in Bazaar.

Regards

Jonathan Gossage